general account, but this aim is not kept steadily in view. Nor is there
any well-considered principle of classification. What we find is a sort
of portrait-gallery of the various types of moral excellence which
the Greeks of the author's age admired and strove to encourage. The
discussion is full of acute, interesting and sometimes profound
observations. Some of the types are those which are and will be admired
at all times, but others are connected with peculiar features of Greek
life which have now passed away. The most important is that of Justice
or the Just Man, to which we may later return. But the discussion is
preceded by an attempt to elucidate some difficult and obscure points in
the general account of moral virtue and action (Book III, cc i-v). This
section is concerned with the notion of Responsibility. The discussion
designedly excludes what we may call the metaphysical issues of the
problem, which here present themselves, it moves on the level of thought
of the practical man, the statesman, and the legislator. Coercion and
ignorance of relevant circumstances render acts involuntary and exempt
their doer from responsibility, otherwise the act is voluntary and the
agent responsible, choice or preference of what is done, and inner
consent to the deed, are to be presumed. Neither passion nor ignorance
of the right rule can extenuate responsibility. But there is a
difference between acts done voluntarily and acts done of _set_ choice
or purpose. The latter imply Deliberation. Deliberation involves
thinking, thinking out means to ends: in deliberate acts the whole
nature of the agent consents to and enters into the act, and in a
peculiar sense they are his, they _are_ him in action, and the most
significant evidence of what he is. Aristotle is unable wholly to avoid
allusion to the metaphysical difficulties and what he does here say upon
them is obscure and unsatisfactory. But he insists upon the importance
in moral action of the agent's inner consent, and on the reality of his
individual responsibility. For his present purpose the metaphysical