must be the good and the bad of that Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative and concerned neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed Practical and Intellectual nature the work is that Truth which, as I have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will.
Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice (I mean, what actually sets it in motion, not the final cause)[1], and of Moral Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus Moral Choice is neither independent of intellect, i.e. intellectual operation, nor of a certain moral state: for right or wrong action cannot exist independently of operation of the Intellect and moral character.
But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when directed to a certain result, i.e. exercised in Moral 1139b Action (I say nothing of its being exercised in production, because this function is originated by the former: every one who makes makes with a view to somewhat further; and that which is or may be made is not an End in itself, but only relatively to somewhat else, and belonging to some one: I whereas that which is or may be done is an End in itself, because acting well is an End in itself, and this is the object of the Will): and so Moral Choice is either Intellect put in a position of Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intellectual Process. And such a Cause is Man.
But nothing which is done and past can be the object of Moral Choice; for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no one ever deliberates about what is past but only about that which is future and which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been cannot not have been: and so Agathon is right in saying,
Thus then the Truth is the work of both the"Of this alone is Deity bereft,
To make undone whatever hath been done."
