The agent also must be in a certain condition when he
does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must
choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly
his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.
These are not reckoned in as conditions of the possession of the arts,
except the bare knowledge; but as a condition of the possession of the
virtues knowledge has little or no weight, while the other
conditions count not for a little but for everything, i.e. the very
conditions which result from often doing just and temperate acts.
Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as
the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does
these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as
just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by
doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing
temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would
have even a prospect of becoming good.
But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think
they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving
somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do
none of the things they are ordered to do.
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