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‘After this division, or classification, of wrong acts, some of which are directed against the entire community, and the others against one or more individuals, let us first repeat our definition of τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι, that we may know what being treated unjustly, or suffering wrong, is, and then proceed to the rest’.

The introduction of ἄλλους here leads to a new distinction: a civil action between parties in their private capacity may be brought either against one or several, as when an action is brought against a club or commercial company or the partners in a firm: in either case the offence which is the subject of it is private and particular, and directed against individuals, and both of them are distinguished from state offences.

ἀναλαβόντες] to repeat or resume (take up again) seems to be a reference to I 10. 3, where ἀδικεῖν, the exact opposite of ἀδικεῖσθυι, was defined, and the latter can readily be inferred from the former. This may be called a resumption, or, in a sense, a repetition of the preceding definition, or at all events of the same subject; and this seems to be confirmed by the reference, in the next sentence, to this very definition. On the entire question of the voluntary character of ἀδίκημα and ἀδικία see Eth. Nic. V 11 (Bekk.): and that of vice in general is discussed in the same work, III 7 (Bekk.). The conclusion in the two chapters of the Ethics is that which is here assumed to be the fact.

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