much? It does away with that touching Socratic delusion as to the impossibility of sinning against knowledge, but only at the price of abolishing the 'sin' itself.
For Aristotle's answer to this question we must look to the De Anima, not to the Ethics. In the latter his task is to show that, and how, Incontinence takes place, not to explain or justify the moral reprobation we attach to it. This justification, obviously, can only be found in the presence of some psychological factor which the weakness of even the incontinent man does not entirely deprive him of. There must be somewhere available a Kinetic element capable of 'moving the limbs' in the other direction. Ex hypothesi this cannot be a sensible object; it must be something mental and subjective, not physical and objective, something, i.e., having its origin in the mind itself, not in a stimulus to Feeling from without. Is there anything of this kind to be found?
In one sense of the term Aristotle answers 'No!' That is, he declines to introduce any third element, or Faculty, in addition to Reason and Feeling (διάνοια καὶ αἴσθησις) or to attribute to the former any 'moving' power.[1] On the other hand he recognises gladly the fact that, as a matter of common experience, an 'idea in the mind' may have a powerful 'physical' effect upon the movement of the body. Now an 'idea in the mind' is, as such, independent of any present sense surroundings. If then such an 'idea' (φάντασμα) can be introduced into consciousness at the critical moment it may outweigh the 'sense object' (αἰσθητόν) which, if allowed to act unhampered by anything but rational principles (καθόλου δόξαι), has such dire effect upon weak human nature. φαντάσματα—mental images—have as much 'moving' power as physical objects. They possess this power because they excite 'Feeling,' with consequent 'Desire,' and they excite 'Feeling' because they are themselves 'decaying relics of sense'[2]. As products of original sense impressions they have that capacity of stimulating movement which sense impressions themselves possess. They are permanent (as contrasted with actual sense impressions) elements retained in the memory, still endowed with the capacities they owe to their origin, and available at any time. They form, it is true, in the sphere of knowledge,[3] that raw material out of which Reason constructs the world of Science, but they are not 'rational' elements in the sense that they owe their
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