Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

Thus it comes about that when men fail in self-restraint, they act in a sense under the influence of a principle or opinion, but an opinion not in itself but only accidentally opposed to the right principle 3. [11] （for it is the desire, and not the opinion, that is really opposed）. Hence the lower animals cannot be called unrestrained, if only for the reason that they have no power of forming universal concepts, but only mental images and memories of particular things.3. [12]

If we ask how the unrestrained man's ignorance is dissipated and he returns to a state of knowledge, the explanation is the same as in the case of drunkenness and sleep, and is not peculiar to failure of self-restraint. We must go for it to physiology.3. [13]

But inasmuch as the last premise, which originates action, is an opinion as to some object of sense, and it is this opinion which the unrestrained man when under the influence of passion either does not possess, or only possesses in a way which as we saw does not amount to knowing it but only makes him repeat it as the drunken man repeats the maxims of Empedocles, and since the ultimate term is not a universal, and is not deemed to be an object of Scientific Knowledge in the same way as a universal term is, we do seem to be led to the conclusion¹ which Socrates sought to establish. 3. [14] For the knowledge which is present when failure of self-restraint² occurs is not what is held to be Knowledge in the true sense, nor is it true Knowledge which is dragged about by passion, but knowledge derived from sense-perception.

So much for the question whether failure of self-restraint can go with knowledge or not, and with knowledge in what sense. 4.

（ii） We must next discuss whether any man can be called ‘unrestrained’ without qualification, or whether it must always be in relation to certain particular things, and if so, to what sort of things. Now it is plain that men are self-restrained and enduring, unrestrained and soft, in regard to Pleasures and Pains. [2] But the things that give pleasure are of two kinds: some are necessary,³ others are desirable in themselves but admit of excess. The necessary sources of pleasures are those connected with the body: I mean such as the functions of nutrition and sex, in fact those bodily functions which we have indicated⁴ as the sphere of Profligacy and Temperance. The other sources of pleasure are not necessary, but are desirable in themselves: I mean for example victory, honor, wealth, and the other good and pleasant things of the same sort. Now those who against the right principle within them exceed in regard to the latter class of pleasant things, we do not call unrestrained simply, but with a qualification—unrestrained as to money, gain, honor or anger⁵ —not merely ‘unrestrained’ ; because we regard them as distinct from the unrestrained in the strict sense, and only so called by analogy, like our familiar example⁶ of Man the Olympic winner,