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    		•

    Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (ed. H. Rackham)

    Book 3

    Editions and translations: Greek (ed. J. Bywater) | English (ed. H. Rackham)
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    nor do we call men profligate who feel excessive pain for the loss of fortune or friends.

    [3] Temperance therefore has to do with the pleasures of the body. But not with all even of these; for men who delight in the pleasures of the eye, in colors, forms and paintings, are not termed either temperate or profligate, although it would be held that these things also can be enjoyed in the right manner, or too much, or too little. [4] Similarly with the objects of hearing: no one would term profligate those who take an excessive pleasure in music, or the theater, nor temperate those who enjoy them as is right. [5] Nor yet does Temperance apply to enjoyment of the sense of smell, unless accidentally1 ; we do not call those who are fond of the scent of fruit or robes or incense profligate, though we may be inclined so to style those who love perfumes and the smell of savory dishes, for the profligate take pleasure in these odors because they remind them of the objects of their desires. [6] One may notice that other persons too like the smell of food when they are hungry; but to delight in things of this kind is a mark of the profligate, since they are the things on which the profligate's desires are set.2

    [7] Nor do the lower animals derive any pleasure from these senses, except accidentally.3 Hounds do not take pleasure in scenting hares, but in eating them; the scent merely made them aware of the hare.The lion does not care about the lowing of the ox, but about devouring it, though the lowing tells him that the ox is near, and consequently he appears to take pleasure in the sound. Similarly he is not pleased by the sight of ‘or stag or mountain goat,’4 but by the prospect of a meal.

    [8] Temperance and Profligacy are therefore concerned with those pleasures which man shares with the lower animals, and which consequently appear slavish and bestial. These are the pleasures of touch and taste. [9] But even taste appears to play but a small part, if any, in Temperance. For taste is concerned with discriminating flavors, as is done by wine-tasters, and cooks preparing savory dishes; but it is not exactly the flavors that give pleasure, or at all events not to the profligate: it is actually enjoying the object that is pleasant, and this is done solely through the sense of touch, alike in eating and drinking and in what are called the pleasures of sex. [10] This is why a certain gourmand5 wished that his throat might be longer than a crane's, showing that his pleasure lay in the sensation of contact.

    1 i.e., by association.

    2 The text here is doubtful, and possibly the whole of 10.6 is an interpolation.

    3 i.e., by association.

    4 Hom. Il. 3.24

    5 Apparently a character of comedy, though later writers speak of him as a real person. Some mss. here insert his name, ‘Hospitable, the son of Belch,’ cf. Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1231a 16, where the story recurs, and Aristoph. Frogs 934.

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    This text is based on the following book(s):
    Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
    OCLC: 39541390
    ISBN: 0674990811

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