g. 'dry food is
good for every man', and 'I am a man', or 'such and such food is dry';
but whether 'this food is such and such', of this the incontinent
man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge. There will,
then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between these manners of
knowing, so that to know in one way when we act incontinently would
not seem anything strange, while to know in the other way would be
extraordinary.
And further (c) the possession of knowledge in another sense than
those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case
of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state,
admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet
not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk.
But now this is just the condition of men under the influence of
passions; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other
such passions, it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and
in some men even produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that
incontinent people must be said to be in a similar condition to men
asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact that men use the language that flows
from knowledge proves nothing; for even men under the influence of
these passions utter scientific proofs and verses of Empedocles, and
those who have just begun to learn a science can string together its
phrases, but do not yet know it; for it has to become part of
themselves, and that takes time; so that we must suppose that the
use of language by men in an incontinent state means no more than
its utterance by actors on the stage.
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