E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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ἔστι δ᾽ ἣ μὲν βούλησις κ.τ.λ.] Comp. Eth. N. III 4, 1111 b 26, ἔτι δ᾽ ἡ μὲν βούλησις τοῦ τέλους ἐστὶ μᾶλλον, ἡ δὲ προαίρεσις τῶν πρὸς τὸ τέλος, οἷον ὑγιαίνειν βουλόμεθα, προαιρούμεθα δὲ δἰ ὧν ὑγιανοῦμεν, καὶ εὐδαιμονεῖν μὲν βουλόμεθα καὶ φαμέν, προαιρούμεθα δὲ λέγειν οὐχ ἁρμόζει: ὅλως γὰρ ἔοικεν προαίρεσις περὶ τὰ ἐφ̓ ἡμῖν εἶναι. This is a qualification of the too unlimited statement of the unscientific Rhetoric. ‘In English, unfortunately, we have no term capable of adequately expressing what is common both to will and desire; that is, the nisus or conatus—the tendency towards the realisation of their end. By will is meant a free and deliberate, by desire a blind and fatal, tendency to action’. Sir W. Hamilton, Lect. on Metaph. XI Vol. I. p. 184—5. On this, the Editor refers in a note to this passage. But βούλησις here means not ‘will’, but ‘wish’, as appears from the defi-nition ἀγαθοῦ ὄρεξις—the ‘will’ is not always directed to good—and from the analysis of it in Eth. N. III 4. The term by which Sir W. H. proposes to designate the common quality of this family of faculties, and so separate them from the rest, is Conative. Impulsive means much the same thing, and has the advantage of being an English word.

οὐδεὶς γὰρ βούλεται κ.τ.λ.] This question of the end and object of ‘the wish’ is discussed in Eth. Nic. III 6 (Bekk.), and the conclusion, 1113 a 23, is as follows: εἰ δὲ δὴ ταῦτα μὴ ἀρέσκει (the two opposite views that it is τἀγαθόν and τὸ φαινόμενον ἀγαθόν), ἆρα φατέον ἁπλῶς μὲν καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν βουλητὸν εἶναι τἀγαθόν, ἑκάστῳ δὲ τὸ φαινόμενον; τῷ μὲν οὖν σπουδαίῳ τὸ κατ̓ ἀλήθειαν εἶναι, τῷ δὲ φαύλῳ τὸ τυχόν.