The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

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. (d) Again, we may also view the cause as follows with
reference to the facts of human nature. The one opinion is
universal, the other is concerned with the particular facts, and
here we come to something within the sphere of perception; when a
single opinion results from the two, the soul must in one type of
case affirm the conclusion, while in the case of opinions concerned
with production it must immediately act (e.g. if ‘everything sweet
ought to be tasted’, and ‘this is sweet’, in the sense of being one
of the particular sweet things, the man who can act and is not
prevented must at the same time actually act accordingly). When,
then, the universal opinion is present in us forbidding us to
taste, and there is also the opinion that ‘everything sweet is
pleasant’, and that ‘this is sweet’ (now this is the opinion that
is active), and when appetite happens to be present in us, the one
opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us towards it
(for it can move each of our bodily parts); so that it turns out
that a man behaves incontinently under the influence (in a sense)
of a rule and an opinion, and of one not contrary in itself, but
only incidentally-for the appetite is contrary, not the opinion-to
the right rule. It also follows that this is the reason why the
lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no
universal judgement but only imagination and memory of
particulars.
    The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the
incontinent man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case
of the man drunk or asleep and is not peculiar to this condition;
we must go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last
premiss both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and being
what determines our actions this a man either has not when he is in
the state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having
knowledge did not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man
may utter the verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is
not universal nor equally an object of scientific knowledge with
the universal term, the position that Socrates sought to establish
actually seems to result; for it is not in the presence of what is
thought to be knowledge proper that the affection of incontinence
arises (nor is it this that is ‘dragged about’ as a result of the
state of passion), but in that of perceptual knowledge.
    This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with
and without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave
incontinently with knowledge.
<
    div class="section" title="4">
4
    (2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is
incontinent without qualification, or all men who are incontinent
are so in a particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of
objects he is concerned. That both continent persons and persons of
endurance, and incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with
pleasures and pains, is evident.
    Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary,
while others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of
excess, the bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I
mean both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual
intercourse, i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined
self-indulgence and temperance