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that we perform or undergo knowingly, though none
of them is either voluntary or involuntary1; for example, growing old, and
dying.
[4]
Also an act may be either just or unjust incidentally. A man may restore a deposit
unwillingly and from fear of consequences, and we must not then say that he does a just
act, nor that he acts justly, except incidentally; and similarly a man who under
compulsion and against his will fails to restore a deposit can only be said to act
unjustly or do what is unjust incidentally.
[5]
Again voluntary acts are divided into acts done by choice and those done not by choice,
the former being those done after deliberation and the latter those done without previous
deliberation.
[6]
There are then three ways2
in which a man may injure his fellow. An injury done in ignorance is an error, the person
affected or the act or the instrument or the result being other than the agent supposed;
for example, he did not think to hit, or not with this missile, or not this person, or not
with this result, but it happened that either the result was other than he expected
（for instance he did not mean to inflict a wound but only a prick）, or
the person, or the missile.
[7]
When then the injury happens
contrary to reasonable expectation, it is （1） a misadventure. When,
though not contrary to reasonable expectation, it is done without evil intent, it is
（2） a culpable error; for an error is culpable when the cause of one's
ignorance lies in oneself, but only a misadventure when the cause lies outside oneself.
[8]
When an injury is done knowingly but not deliberately, it
is （3） an act of injustice or wrong; such, for instance, are injuries
done through anger, or any other unavoidable or natural passion to which men are liable;
since in committing these injuries and errors a man acts unjustly, and his action is an
act of injustice, but he is not ipso facto unjust or wicked,
for the injury was not done out of wickedness. When however an injury is done from choice,
the doer is unjust and wicked.
[9]
Hence acts due to sudden
anger are rightly held not to be done of malice aforethought, for it is the man who gave
the provocation that began it, not he who does the deed in a fit of passion.
[10]
And moreover the issue is not one of fact, but of justification
（since it is apparent injustice that arouses anger）; the fact of the
injury is not disputed （as it is in cases of contract, where one or the other of
the parties must be a knave, unless they dispute the facts out of forgetfulness）.
They agree as to the facts but dispute on which side justice lies so that one thinks he
has been unjustly treated and the other does not. On the other hand, one who has planned
an injury is not acting in ignorance;3
1 ‘Involuntary’ is certainly corrupt: perhaps Aristotle wrote ‘in our control.’
2 The three sorts of injury are ἀτύχημα, ἁμάρτημα, and ἀδίκημα. The second term is introduced first, in its wider sense of a mistake which leads to an offense against someone else （the word connotes both things）. It is then subdivided into two; ἀτύχημα, accident or misadventure, and offense due to mistake and not reasonably to be expected, and ἁμάρτημα in the narrow sense, a similar offense that ought to have been foreseen. The third term, ἀδίκημα, a wrong, is subdivided into wrongs done in a passion, which do not prove wickedness, and wrongs done deliberately, which do.
3 In the mss. this clause stands before the preceding one.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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