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But of the characters who go wrong without choosing so to do, the

one is led on by reason of pleasure, the other because he avoids

the pain it would cost him to deny his lust; and so they are

different the one from the other. Now every one would pronounce a

man worse for doing something base without any impulse of desire,

or with a very slight one, than for doing the same from the

impulse of a very strong desire; for striking a man when not

angry than if he did so in wrath: because one naturally says,

"What would he have done had he been under the influence of

passion?" (and on this ground, by the bye, the man utterly void

of Self-Control is worse than he who has it imperfectly).

However, of the two characters which have been mentioned,[16] [as

included in that of utter absence of Self-Control], the one is

rather Softness, the other properly the man of no Self-Control.