use his Knowledge, and he who does, are said to know: there will be a difference between a man’s acting wrongly, who though possessed of Knowledge does not call it into operation, and his doing so who has it and actually exercises it: the latter is a strange case, but the mere having, if not exercising, presents no anomaly.
Again, as there are two kinds of propositions affecting action,185 universal and particular, there is no reason why a man may not act against his Knowledge, having both propositions in his mind, using the universal but not the particular, for the particulars are the objects of moral action.
There is a difference also in universal propositions;186 a universal proposition may relate partly to a man’s self and partly to the thing in question: take the following for instance; “dry food is good for every man,” this may have the two minor premisses, “this is a man,” and “so and so is dry food;” but whether a given substance is so and so a man either has not the Knowledge or does not exert it. According to these different senses there will be an immense difference, so that for a man to know in the one sense, and yet act wrongly, would be nothing strange, but in any of the other senses it would be a matter for wonder.
Again, men may have Knowledge in a way different from any of those which have been now stated: for we constantly see a man’s state so differing by having and not using Knowledge, that he has it in a sense and also has not; when a man is asleep, for instance, or mad, or drunk: well, men under the actual operation of passion are in exactly similar conditions; for anger, lust, and some other such-like things, manifestly make changes even in the body, and in some they even cause madness; it is plain then that we must say the men of Imperfect Self-Control are in a