But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not as
a result of incontinence, e.g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles'
Philoctetes; yet it was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand
fast-but a noble pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, but
he had been persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every one
who does anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent or
bad or incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.
Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than he
should in bodily things, and does not abide by the rule, he who is
intermediate between him and the incontinent man is the continent man;
for the incontinent man fails to abide by the rule because he delights
too much in them, and this man because he delights in them too little;
while the continent man abides by the rule and does not change on
either account. Now if continence is good, both the contrary states
must be bad, as they actually appear to be; but because the other
extreme is seen in few people and seldom, as temperance is thought
to be contrary only to self-indulgence, so is continence to
incontinence.
Since many names are applied analogically, it is by analogy that
we have come to speak of the 'continence' the temperate man; for
both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing
contrary to the rule for the sake of the bodily pleasures, but the
former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is
such as not to feel pleasure contrary to the rule, while the former is
such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it.
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