Again, when impulses are natural, it is more excusable to follow them, since even with the desires it is more excusable to follow those that are common to all men, and in so far as they are common. But anger and bad temper are more natural than desire for excessive and unnecessary pleasures; witness the man who was had up for beating his father and who said in his defence, “Well, my father used to beat his father, and he used to beat his, and （pointing to his little boy） so will my son here beat me when he grows up; it runs in our family”; and the man who, when his son was throwing him out of the house, used to beg him to stop when he got to the door, ‘because he only used to drag his father as far as that.’This story is developed in Robert Browning's poem ‘Halbert and Hob’ ; it is said also to occur in a German Volkslied.

Again, the craftier men are, the more Unjust they are.