10
After courage let us speak of temperance; for these seem to be the
virtues of the irrational parts. We have said that temperance is a
mean with regard to pleasures (for it is less, and not in the same
way, concerned with pains); self-indulgence also is manifested in
the same sphere. Now, therefore, let us determine with what sort of
pleasures they are concerned. We may assume the distinction between
bodily pleasures and those of the soul, such as love of honour and
love of learning; for the lover of each of these delights in that of
which he is a lover, the body being in no way affected, but rather the
mind; but men who are concerned with such pleasures are called neither
temperate nor self-indulgent. Nor, again, are those who are
concerned with the other pleasures that are not bodily; for those
who are fond of hearing and telling stories and who spend their days
on anything that turns up are called gossips, but not
self-indulgent, nor are those who are pained at the loss of money or
of friends.
Temperance must be concerned with bodily pleasures, but not all even
of these; for those who delight in objects of vision, such as
colours and shapes and painting, are called neither temperate nor
self-indulgent; yet it would seem possible to delight even in these
either as one should or to excess or to a deficient degree.
And so too is it with objects of hearing; no one calls those who
delight extravagantly in music or acting self-indulgent, nor those who
do so as they ought temperate.
Nor do we apply these names to those who delight in odour, unless it
be incidentally; we do not call those self-indulgent who delight in
the odour of apples or roses or incense, but rather those who
delight in the odour of unguents or of dainty dishes; for
self-indulgent people delight in these because these remind them of
the objects of their appetite. And one may see even other people, when
they are hungry, delighting in the smell of food; but to delight in
this kind of thing is the mark of the self-indulgent man; for these
are objects of appetite to him.
Nor is there in animals other than man any pleasure connected with
these senses, except incidentally. For dogs do not delight in the
scent of hares, but in the eating of them, but the scent told them the
hares were there; nor does the lion delight in the lowing of the ox,
but in eating it; but he perceived by the lowing that it was near, and
therefore appears to delight in the lowing; and similarly he does
not delight because he sees 'a stag or a wild goat', but because he is
going to make a meal of it. Temperance and self-indulgence, however,
are concerned with the kind of pleasures that the other animals
share in, which therefore appear slavish and brutish; these are
touch and taste. But even of taste they appear to make little or no
use; for the business of taste is the discriminating of flavours,
which is done by winetasters and people who season dishes; but they
hardly take pleasure in making these discriminations, or at least
self-indulgent people do not, but in the actual enjoyment, which in
all cases comes through touch, both in the case of food and in that of
drink and in that of sexual intercourse. This is why a certain
gourmand prayed that his throat might become longer than a crane's,
implying that it was the contact that he took pleasure in. Thus the
sense with which self-indulgence is connected is the most widely
shared of the senses; and self-indulgence would seem to be justly a
matter of reproach, because it attaches to us not as men but as
animals. To delight in such things, then, and to love them above all
others, is brutish. For even of the pleasures of touch the most
liberal have been eliminated, e.g. those produced in the gymnasium
by rubbing and by the consequent heat; for the contact
characteristic of the self-indulgent man does not affect the whole
body but only certain parts.
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