A man may be ignorant, then, of who he is, what he is doing,
what or whom he is acting on, and sometimes also what (e.g. what
instrument) he is doing it with, and to what end (e.g. he may think
his act will conduce to some one's safety), and how he is doing it
(e.g. whether gently or violently). Now of all of these no one could
be ignorant unless he were mad, and evidently also he could not be
ignorant of the agent; for how could he not know himself? But of
what he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say
'it slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking', or 'they did
not know it was a secret', as Aeschylus said of the mysteries, or a
man might say he 'let it go off when he merely wanted to show its
working', as the man did with the catapult. Again, one might think
one's son was an enemy, as Merope did, or that a pointed spear had a
button on it, or that a stone was pumicestone; or one might give a man
a draught to save him, and really kill him; or one might want to touch
a man, as people do in sparring, and really wound him. The ignorance
may relate, then, to any of these things, i.e. of the circumstances of
the action, and the man who was ignorant of any of these is thought to
have acted involuntarily, and especially if he was ignorant on the
most important points; and these are thought to be the circumstances
of the action and its end.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74