Besides, it has been shown before that the man of
practical wisdom is one who will act (for he is a man concerned with
the individual facts) and who has the other virtues.
(2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites,
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man
temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad
appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites are
good, the state of character that restrains us from following them
is bad, so that not all continence will be good; while if they are
weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if
they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in resisting these
either.
(3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and
every opinion, it is bad, i.e. if it makes him stand even by a false
opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and
every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which
Sophocles' Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes will be an instance; for
he is to be praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to
do, because he is pained at telling a lie.
(4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the
syllogism arising from men's wish to expose paradoxical results
arising from an opponent's view, in order that they may be admired
when they succeed, is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought is
bound fast when it will not rest because the conclusion does not
satisfy it, and cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument).
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