1 Aristotle 4 · Handed down at the Lyceum, taken from his own writings
Aristotle, born at Stagira in 384 before this era, died at Chalcis in 322. His father was physician to the king of Macedon. He entered the Academy at seventeen and stayed twenty years, leaving only when Plato died. He taught Alexander. In 335 he founded the Lyceum at Athens. In 323 the Athenians charged him with impiety and he left the city, saying he would not let Athens sin twice against philosophy — he knew that Socrates had not left. He died of illness the next year. He is not a witness: he never met the Teacher, he is the student of a student. What survives of him is lecture notes, not the works he published in his lifetime; those are wholly lost. On God he reasons out an unmoved mover — reasoned to, not worshipped — and no argument of his closes on divine will. What is taken here is from his own books: the Order wants words that can be checked, not a name that can be cited. Further: in the fourth chapter he stands directly against the Teacher. The Teacher said no one does wrong knowing it is wrong; he says that does not square with what anyone can see, and offers another account. The Order does not reconcile them. The Teacher is in the four gospels, his objection is here, and the reader decides after reading both.
4.1In this chapter I part from my teacher’s teacher.
4.2He said that no one does wrong knowingly; that a man does wrong because he does not know it is wrong.
4.3He said that if you truly knew a thing was bad for you, you would not want it. So badness is only ignorance.
4.4The saying is beautiful and it is tidy. But it does not square with what we see every day.
4.5Every day we see men who know they should not, and do it anyway, and are sorry afterward.
4.6If he truly did not know, what is he sorry about?
4.7So I say: he knew. He simply was not using what he knew at that moment.
4.8Knowing is of two sorts: having it in hand, and using it.
4.9The sleeping man, the drunk man and the mad man all still have their learning. They are not using it.
4.10A man with appetite risen up in him is, at that moment, much like a drunk man. He can still recite the reasoning aloud, as an actor recites his lines.
4.11Being able to recite it is not using it.
4.12Now one more division. Get this one clear and you will read people far more accurately.
4.13There is the man who knows he should not, does it, and is wretched afterward.
4.14And there is the man who does not think he should not at all. He has settled on living this way, and he is not sorry.
4.15The first has failed to hold himself. The second has taken the bad thing for a good one.
4.16People commonly run these two together. They are far apart.
4.17The first can still be helped, because the measure is still in him; only his hand did not follow it.
4.18The second is hard to help, because his measure has been altered. To help him you must first change the measure back, and he sees nothing wrong with it.
4.19So before you reproach a man, see whether he is sorry. To the one who is sorry, you still have something to say.