Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/160
1 gz Aristotle’s Ethics erm vi. . must be the good and the bad of that Intellectual Operation i which is purely Speculative and concerned neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed Practical and Intellectual nature the work is that Truth which, as I have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will. Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice [ (I mean, what actually sets it in motion, not the final cause), and of Moral Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus Moral Choice is neither independent I of intellect, i.e. intellectual operation, nor of a certain moral (¥ state: for right or wrong action cannot exist independently _·‘ 1 fi of operation of the Intellect and moral character. But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when directed to a certain result, i.e. exercised in Moral uggb Action (I say nothing of its being exercised in production, because this function is originated by the former: every one who makes makes with a view to somewhat further; and that which is or may be made is not an End in itself, but only relatively to somewhat else, and belonging to some one: I whereas that which is or may be done is an End in itself, ( because acting well is an End in itself, and this is the object of the Will): and so Moral Choice is either Intellect put in a position of Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intel- ( fi lectual Process. And such a Cause is Man. r But nothing which is done and past can be the object of ( `_), e Moral Choice; for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no one ever deliberates about what is past but only about that which is future and which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been cannot not have been: and so Agathon is right in saying, ~ " Of this alone is Deity bereft, y I I n ( Thus then the Truth is the workyof both the
