3. Undoubtedly there is a certain element of ignorance in all vice,
and a certain absence of will about every vicious act. There is
likewise an intellectual side to all virtue. These positions we
willingly concede to the Socratics. Every morally evil act is borne of
some voluntary inconsiderateness. The agent is looking the wrong way
in the instant at which he does wrong. Either he is regarding only the
solicitations of his inferior nature to the neglect of the superior,
or he is considering some rational good indeed, but a rational good
which, if he would look steadily upon it, he would perceive to be
unbefitting for him to choose. No man can do evil in the very instant
in which his understanding is considering, above all things else, that
which it behoves him specially to consider in the case. Again, in
every wrong act, it is not the sheer evil that is willed, but the good
through or with the evil. Good, real or supposed, is sought for: evil
is accepted as leading to good in the way of means, or annexed thereto
as a circumstance. Moreover, no act is virtuous that is elicited quite
mechanically, or at the blind instance of passion.
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