Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

Is then a man self-restrained if he stands by a principle or choice of any sort, or must it be the right choice? and is a man unrestrained if he fails to stand by a choice or principle of any sort, or only if he fails to stand by the true principle and the right choice? This difficulty was raised before.¹ Perhaps the answer is, that though accidentally it may be any principle or choice, essentially it is the true principle and the right choice that the one stands by and the other does not; in the sense that if a man chooses or pursues b as a means to a, a is essentially, b only accidentally, his object and his choice. And by ‘essentially’ we mean ‘absolutely’ ; hence while in a sense it is any sort of opinion, speaking absolutely it is the true opinion that the one stands by and the other abandons.