Book 2
19
For the deliberative faculty is the spirit’s power of contemplating a kind of cause—for one sort of cause is the final cause, as although cause means anything because of which a thing comes about, it is the object of a thing’s existence or production that we specially designate as its cause: for instance, if a man walks in order to fetch things, fetching things is the cause of his walking. Consequently people who have no fixed aim are not given to deliberation.
20
Hence inasmuch as if a man of his own accord and not through ignorance does or refrains from doing something resting with himself either to do or not to do, he acts or refrains from acting voluntarily, but yet we do many such things without deliberation or previous thought, it necessarily follows that, although all that has been purposively chosen is voluntary, voluntary is not the same as chosen, and, although all things done by purposive choice are voluntary, not all things voluntary are done by purposive choice.
21
And at the same time it is clear from these considerations that the classification of offences made by legislators as in voluntary, voluntary and premeditated is a good one; for even if it is not precisely accurate, yet at all events it approximates to the truth in a way.
