It is impossible for the same man to be at once prudent and incontinent; for we have shown that man cannot be prudent without being at the same time morally good.

Moreover, a man is not prudent simply because he knows⁠—he must also be apt to act according to his knowledge; but the incontinent man is not apt to act according to his knowledge (though there is nothing to prevent a man who is clever at calculating means from being incontinent; and so people sometimes think a man prudent and yet incontinent, because this cleverness is related to prudence in the manner before 202 explained, resembling prudence as an intellectual faculty, but differing from it by the absence of purpose): nor indeed does he know as one who knows and is now using his knowledge, but as one may know who is asleep or drunk.