Chapter 3

Term 1

The Conceited Man

The conceited man thinks himself worthy of great things, but is unworthy of them.

The conceited man is excessive with regard to himself, but the magnanimous man is not.

The conceited are foolish and do not know themselves, because they lay claim on things too great, for things they are not worth of.

Term 2

Dogs

Dogs do not take pleasure in the scent of hares, but in eating them, and dogs know them by their scent.

Term 3

Meats

Easily digestible and light meats such as fowl are healthy.

Term 4

Calipso

Calipso's warning was this: keep your ship out of the surf and spray. (Homer, Odyssey 12.219.)

Term 5

Causes

There seem to be four causes: nature, necessity, chance, and intellect.

Term 6

The Harpist

Just as one becomes a harpist by playing the harp, so it is by doing just things that a man becomes just, and so with other things.

Term 7

The Blind Man

No one would reproach a man blind naturally by sickness or plague, but would even more pity him. All would certainly reproach a man, however, made blind by drinking wine or some other incontinence.

Term 8

The Mad-bellied

They are called mad-bellied who stuff their bellies beyond need and take up for themselves more than their share. Such men become very brutish.

Term 9

Key

Key is said equivocally, both as the collar-bone, clavical (clavicula), below the neck of an animal, and what is used to close gates.

Term 10

Delight in Food

Delight in food is common and natural, since it comes from our shared nature. Every man seeks after food whenever he is hungry, and after drink when he thirsts, and sometimes both.

Term 11

Cause

If no one who does harm is the cause of it, neither is the man who does good.

Term 12

Joint Cause

We are joint causes of our habits of virtue.

Term 13

Regarding Circumstances

It is not out of place to situate an action in its circumstances.

Term 14

Regarding Comparison

Concerning the comparison of the mean to its extremes, and of the extremes to one other.

Term 15

Regarding Concupiscence or Sensual Desire

Sensual desire and anger are not involuntary causes.

Sensual desire (concupiscence) brings with it pleasure and sorrow, but choice does not.

In natural desires, few go astray.

Some desires are common to all, and some are particular.

It is not praiseworthy to resist desires that are weak or not wicked.

Desire seems to have the place of a father and friends.

The desire of good things is worthy of praise, but the desire of shameful things worthy of blame.

Sexual desires make men mad.

Desire, only wants a mere suggestion of the seneses or reason that a thing is pleasurable to strive toward its enjoyment.

Term 16

Counsel

No one takes counsel regarding eternal things, such as whether the world is eternal, nor of sides and angles, neither of things in motion, which are always in the same state.

Counsel regards actions in our power.

None of the Spartans take counsel about how the Sycthians may best conduct themselves.

Counsel does not treat of objective fields of study, such as how one ought to spell something.

Counsel treats of things we do but with different results, such as in the workings of medicine, or business, or navigation.

Counsel treats more of navigation than althletic training.

Counsel is more needed in the arts than in the sciences, since they treat with less certainty.

Counsel most often deals with uncertain things, when outcomes are unknown. The lesser the certainty, the greater the need for counsel.

Counsel does not concern small matters, but great ones, when we do not trust our own appraisal of things, and we cannot come to a decision.

Counsel does not treat of ends but of means. As a physician does not deliberate on health, but rather on how he might bring it, and other examples are given.

Counsel asks of the easiest and best means of achieving the end, such as how and in which ways it might be done, whether by one means or by several.

One who takes counsel seems to draw conclusions from known material, from things pictured in a diagram.

All counsel is a kind of inquiry, but the reverse is not true.

When taking counsels, if the end result is impossible to achieve, we abandon the project, but if it is possible, we set about work.

When taking counsels we ask which instruments may be necessary, as when someone asks for a ship, and if these will or those things be necessary, similarly in other cases, when we ask by what means or how or on what account it will be done.

Counsel regards things in the powers of men, since man is principle agent of his own actions.

Counsel does not deal with particular things that are manifest to the senses, for example, if we should choose this bread or that, for if we deliberated about everything, this would go on forever.

What is available to counsel is the same is what is available to one's choice, as long as what is open to counsel is determined.

Counsel regards future and contingent things.

No one takes counsel about necessary things which could not be any other way.

One must take much time in taking counsel, but little time in executing it.

Term 17

The Counsel-giver

A good counsel-giver is one who can by reasoning, make best conjectures of what the best man would do in a given situation.

Term 18

Certainty

The same degree of certaintly should not be sought in all fields of knowledge.

Term 19

Political Science

Political science is what dictates which of the sciences ought to be studdied and who should pursue them.

Under political science are three most valuable arts, namely, military strategy, economics, and rhetoric.

Citizens undergo dangers because of the threat of legal penalties.

Political science establishes what must be done and what cannot be done.

The end of political science is to make men good and law-abiding.

Those who enact particular actions are said to be engaging in political science.

Term 20

Agreement

Concerning the agreement of the speculative and practial parts of the intellect. Each of them deals with ultimates, but neither is reasoning.

Term 21

Continuous

In everything that is continuous and divisible, one can take something smaller, lesser, or equal amount.

Term 22

The Continent Man

When the continent man acts, he does so within the bounds of reason, the incontinent without.

The continent man restrains himself on account of reason from the sensual pleasures which he knows to be wicked, but the incontinent man is overcome by passion.

The continent man abides within reason while the incontinent man deviates from it.

The continent man is said to be one who overcomes passions to which many others surrender.

The continent man is a mean between too extremes, those who delight in pleasures too much, and those too little.

The continent man and the temperate man are able, by habit, not to forsake the order of reason for bodily pleasures.

The contient man may have many evil desires but does not follow them. The temperate man, however, neither has them nor takes any delight.

Term 23

Continence

Continence is not a virtue, but has some mixture of it.

Continence and perseverence seem to be noble and praiseworthy.

Continence and incontinence, temperance and intemperance deal, properly speaking, with human passions.

Continence is more desirable than perservereance, just as to overcome is better than only to restrain oneself.

Continence, when it coincides with the mean, is counted with virtue.

Continence and incontinence both deal with matters beyond the habits of many men.

Term 24

Eating Coals

Eating coals and dirt and lying with men both occur because of wicked nature and habit, and these do not belong to continence because they are not delights in themselves proper to human nature.

Term 25

The Girdle of the Cyprian Woman

The girdle of the Cyprian woman is many-coloured.

Term 26

Habit habituation

Habit is a difficult thing to change, since it resembles a kind of nature. Hence, after a long effort, it finally becomes fully engrained in man's nature.

Term 27

The Concupiscible Power

The concupiscible and appetitive powers participate in reason in some way.

Term 28

Contemplation

The contemplation of wisdom is esteemed soley for its own sake, because it accomplishes no other deed or reckoning. In practical matters, however, we seek something beyond merely what we accomplish by some action we do.

The contemplative man is the happiest.

The contemplative man acting with understanding is most beloved to God.