what is really good is bad and ought not to be done; and so he will eventually do what is good and not what is bad.
Again, on the same supposition, the man who acting on conviction pursues and chooses things because they are pleasant must be thought a better man than he who does so not by reason of a quasi-rational conviction but of Imperfect Self-Control: because he is more open to cure by reason of the possibility of his receiving a contrary conviction. But to the man of Imperfect Self-Control would apply the proverb, “when water chokes, what should a man drink then?” for had he never been convinced at all in respect of what he does,184 then by a conviction in a contrary direction he might have stopped in his course; but now though he has had convictions he notwithstanding acts against them.
Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control