The first great distinction, we observe, is that noted of Aristotle,
that men are called temperate and intemperate with regard to some, and
not so with respect to others, and that those, with respect to which
they are so called, are, by common consent, held to be the vilest. But
Aristotle, though exquisitely subtle in his notation of facts, does not
frequently give us satisfactory account of, or reason for them. Content
with stating the fact of these pleasures being held the lowest, he shows
not why this estimation of them is just, and confuses the reader by
observing casually respecting the higher pleasures, what is indeed true,
but appears at first opposed to his own position, namely, that "men may
be conceived, as also in these taking pleasure, either rightly, or more
or less than is right."[7] Which being so, and evident capability of
excess or defect existing in pleasures of this higher order, we ought to
have been told how it happens that men are not called intemperate when
they indulge in excess of this kind, and what is that difference in the
nature of the pleasure which diminishes the criminality of its excess.
This let us attempt to ascertain.

Sec. 4. Right use of the term "intemperate."

Men are held intemperate ([Greek: akolastoi]) only when their desires
overcome or prevent the action of their reason, and they are indeed
intemperate in the exact degree in which such prevention or interference
takes place, and so are actually [Greek: akolastoi], in many instances,
and with respect to many resolves, which lower not the world's
estimation of their temperance. For so long as it can be supposed that
the reason has acted imperfectly owing to its own imperfection, or to
the imperfection of the premises submitted to it, (as when men give an
inordinate preference to their own pursuits, because they cannot, in the
nature of things, have sufficiently experienced the goodness and benefit
of others,) and so long as it may be presumed that men have referred to
reason in what they do, and have not suffered its orders to be disobeyed
through mere impulse and desire, (though those orders may be full of
error owing to the reason's own feebleness,) so long men are not held
intemperate. But when it is palpably evident that the reason cannot have
erred but that its voice has been deadened or disobeyed, and that the
reasonable creature has been dragged dead round the walls of his own
citadel by mere passion and impulse,--t