Eudemian Ethics

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 611 sections

2.10.8.1
Whereas clearly it is specially an End that a man wishes, and the feeling that he ought to be healthy and prosperous is an opinion. So these considerations make it clear that purposive choice is different from both opinion and wish. Forming wishes and forming opinions apply specially to one’s End; purposive choice is not of Ends.
2.10.9.1
It is clear, then, that purposive choice is not either wish or opinion or judgement simply; but in what does it differ from them? and how is it related to the voluntary?To answer these questions will make it clear what purposive choice is.
2.10.10.1
Now of things that can both be and not be, some are such that it is possible to deliberate about them, but about others it is not possible. Some things can either be or not be but their coming into being does not rest with us, but in some cases is due to the operation of nature and in others to other causes; and about these things nobody would deliberate unless in ignorance of the facts.
2.10.11.1
But with some things not only their existence or non-existence is possible, but also for human beings to deliberate about them; and these are all the things that it rests with us to do or not to do. Hence we do not deliberate about affairs in India, or about how to square the circle; for affairs in India do not rest with us, whereas the objects of choice and things practicable are among things resting with us, and squaring the circle is entirely impracticable (and thus it is clear that purposive choice is not simply opinion either).
2.10.12.1
But purposive choice does not deal with all the practicable things resting with us either.
2.10.13.1
Hence one might also raise the question, why is it exactly that, whereas doctors deliberate about things in their field of science, scholars do not? The reason is that since error occurs in two ways (for we err either in reasoning, or in perception when actually doing the thing), in medicine it is possible to err in both ways, but in grammar error only occurs in our perception and action, to investigate which would be an endless undertaking.
2.10.14.1
Since then purposive choice is not either opinion nor wish separately, nor yet both (for no one makes a deliberate choice suddenly, but men do suddenly think they ought to act and wish to act), therefore it arises as from both, for both of them are present with a person choosing.
2.10.15.1
But how purposive choice arises out of opinion and wish must be considered. And indeed in a manner the actual term choice makes this clear. Choice is taking, but not taking simply—it is taking one thing in preference to another; but this cannot be done without consideration and deliberation; hence purposive choice arises out of deliberative opinion.
2.10.16.1
Now nobody deliberates about his End—this everybody has fixed; but men deliberate about the means leading to their End—does this contribute to it, or does this ? or when a means has been decided on, how will that be procured? and this deliberation as to means we all pursue until we have carried the starting-point in the process of producing the End back to ourselves.
2.10.17.1
If, then, nobody chooses without first preparing, and deliberating as to the comparative merits of the alternatives, and a man deliberates as to those among the means to the End capable of existing or not existing that are within our power, it is clear that purposive choice is deliberative appetition of things within one’s power. For we deliberate about everything that we choose, although of course we do not choose everything that we deliberate about. I call appetition deliberative when its origin or cause is deliberation,and when a man desires because of having deliberated.
2.10.18.1
Therefore the faculty of purposive choice is not present in the other animals, nor in man at every age nor in every condition, for no more is the act of deliberation, nor yet the concept of cause: it is quite possible that many men may possess the faculty of forming an opinion whether to do or not to do a thing without also having the power of forming this opinion by process of reasoning.
2.10.19.1
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.
2.10.20.1
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.
2.10.21.1
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.
2.10.22.1
But we will speak about this in our examination of justice. As to purposive choice, it is clear that it is not absolutely identical with wish nor with opinion, but is opinion plus appetition when these follow as a conclusion from deliberation.
2.10.22.2
But since one who deliberates always deliberates for the sake of some object, and a man deliberating always has some aim in view with reference to which he considers what is expedient, nobody deliberates about his End, but this is a starting-point or assumption,
2.10.23.1
like the postulates in the theoretic sciences (we have spoken about this briefly at the beginning of this discourse, and in detail in Analytics); whereas with all men deliberation whether technical or untechnical is about the means that lead to their End, e.g. when they deliberate about whether to go to war or not to go to war with a given person.
2.10.24.1
And the question of means will depend rather on a prior question, that is, the question of object, for instance wealth or pleasure or something else of that kind which happens to be our object. For one who deliberates deliberates if he has considered, from the standpoint of the End, either what tends to enable him to bring the End to himself or how he can himself go to the End.
2.10.25.1
And by nature the End is always a good and a thing about which men deliberate step by step(for example a doctor may deliberate whether he shall give a drug, and a general where he shall pitch his camp) when their End is the good that is the absolute best;
2.10.26.1
but in contravention of nature and by perversion not the good but the apparent good is the End. The reason is that there are some things that cannot be employed for something other than their natural objects, for instance sight—it is not possible to see a thing that is not visible, or to hear a thing that is not audible; but a science does enable us to do a thing that is not the object of the science. For health and disease are not the objects of the same science in the same way: health is its object in accordance with nature, and disease in contravention of nature.
2.10.27.1
And similarly, by nature good is the object of wish, but evil is also its object in contravention of nature; by nature one wishes good, against nature and by perversion one even wishes evil.
2.10.27.2
But moreover with everything its corruption and perversion are not in any chance direction, but leads to the contrary and intermediate states. For it is not possible to go outside these, since even error does not lead to any chance thing, but, in the case of things that have contraries, to the contraries, and to those contraries that are contrary according to their science.
2.10.28.1
It therefore necessarily follows that both error and purposive choice take place from the middle point to the contraries (the contraries of the middle being the more and the less).—And the cause is pleasure and pain; for things are so constituted that the pleasant appears to the spirit good and the more pleasant better, the painful bad and the more painful worse.
2.10.29.1
So from these things also it is clear that goodness and badness have to do with pleasures and pains; for they occur in connection with the objects of purposive choice, and this has to do with good and bad and what appears to be good and bad, and pleasure and pain are by nature things of that kind.
2.10.30.1
It therefore follows that since moral goodness is itself a middle state and is entirely concerned with pleasures and pains, and badness consists in excess and defect and is concerned with the same things as goodness, moral goodness or virtue is a state of purposively choosing the mean in relation to ourselves in all those pleasant and painful things in regard to which according as a person feels pleasure or pain he is described as having some particular moral quality(for a person is not said to have a particular moral character merely for being fond of sweets or savories).
2.11.1.1
These things having been settled, let us say whether goodness makes the purposive choice correct and the End right in the sense of making the agent choose for the sake of the proper End, or whether (as some hold) it makes the rational principle right. But what does this is self-control—for that saves the rational principle from being corrupted; and goodness and self-control are different.
2.11.2.1
But we must speak about this later, since all who do hold that goodness makes the rational principle right think so on the ground that that is the nature of self-control and self-control is a praiseworthy thing.
2.11.3.1
Having raised this preliminary question let us continue.It is possible to have one’s aim right but to be entirely wrong in one’s means to the end aimed at; and it is possible for the aim to have been wrongly chosen but the means conducing to it to be right; and for neither to be right.
2.11.4.1
But does goodness decide the aim or the means to it? Well, our position is that it decides the aim, because this is not a matter of logical inference or rational principle, but in fact this must be assumed as a starting-point. For a doctor does not consider whether his patient ought to be healthy or not, but whether he ought to take walking exercise or not, and the gymnastic trainer does not consider whether his pupil ought to be in good condition or not, but whether he ought to go in for wrestling or not;
2.11.5.1
and similarly no other science either deliberates about its End. For as in the theoretic sciences the assumptions are first principles, so in the productive sciences the End is a starting-point and assumption: since it is required that so-and-so is to be in good health, if that is to be secured it is necessary for such-and-such a thing to be provided—just as in mathematics, if the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, such and such a consequence necessarily follows.
2.11.6.1
Therefore the End is the starting-point of the process of thought, but the conclusion of the process of thought is the starting-point of action. If, then, of all rightness either rational principle or goodness is the cause, if rational principle is not the cause of the rightness of the End, then the End (though not the means to the End) will be right owing to goodness.
2.11.7.1
But the End is the object for which one acts; for every purposive choice is a choice of something and for some object. The End is therefore the object for which the thing chosen is the mean, of which End goodness is the cause by its act of choice—though the choice is not of the End but of the means adopted for the sake of the End.
2.11.8.1
Therefore though it belongs to another faculty to hit on the things that must be done for the sake of the End, goodness is the cause of the End aimed at by choice being right.
2.11.9.1
And owing to this it is by a man’s purposive choice that we judge his character—that is, not by what he does but what he does it for.
2.11.10.1
Similarly also badness causes purposive choice to be made from the opposite motives. If therefore, when a man has it in his power to do what is honorable and refrain from doing what is base, he does the opposite, it is clear that this man is not virtuous. Hence it necessarily follows that both badness and goodness are voluntary; for there is no necessity to do wicked things.
2.11.11.1
For this reason badness is a blameworthy thing and goodness praiseworthy; for involuntary baseness and evil are not blamed nor involuntary good things praised, but voluntary ones are. Moreover we praise and blame all men with regard to their purpose rather than with regard to their actions (although activity is a more desirable thing than goodness), because men may do bad acts under compulsion, but no one is compelled to choose to do them.
2.11.12.1
Moreover because it is not easy to see the quality of a man’s purpose we are forced to judge his character from his actions;
2.11.13.1
therefore activity is more desirable, but purpose more praiseworthy. And this not only follows from our assumptions but also is admitted by reason of observed facts.
3.1.1.1
It has then been stated in general terms that there are middle states in the virtues and that these are purposive, and also that the opposite dispositions are vices and what these are. But let us take them separately and discuss them seriatim. And first let us speak about Courage.
3.1.2.1
Now almost everybody holds that the brave man is concerned with fears, and that courage is one of the virtues. And in our schedule previously we distinguished daring and fear as contraries, for they are indeed in a manner opposed to one another.
3.1.3.1
It is clear, therefore, that the persons named after these states of character will also be similarly opposed to each other—that is, the coward (for that is the term that denotes being more afraid than is proper and less daring than is proper) and the daring man (for that denotes the characteristic of being less afraid than is proper and more daring than is proper—and from this the name is derived, as the word daring is cognate with the word dare).
3.1.4.1
So that since courage is the best state of character in relation to feelings of fear and daring, and the proper character is neither that of the daring (for they fall short in one respect and exceed in another) nor that of the cowardly (for they also do the same, only not as regards the same things but inversely— they fall short in daring and exceed in being afraid), it is clear that the middle state of character between daring and cowardice is courage, for this is the best state.
3.1.5.1
And it seems that the brave man is in general fearless, and the coward liable to fear; and that the latter fears things when they are few in number and small in size as well as when numerous and great, and fears violently, and gets frightened quickly, whereas the former on the contrary either never feels fear at all or only slightly and reluctantly and seldom, and in regard to things of magnitude; and he endures things that are extremely formidable, whereas the other does not endure even those that are slightly formidable.
3.1.6.1
What sort of things, then, does the brave man endure? First, is it the things that are formidable to himself or formidable to somebody else? If the things formidable to somebody else, one would not indeed call it anything remarkable; but if it is those that are formidable to himself, what is formidable to him must be things of great magnitude and number. But formidable things are productive of fear in the particular person to whom they are formidable—that is, if they are very formidable, the fear they produce will be violent, if slightly formidable, it will be weak; so it follows that the brave man’s fears are great and many. Yet on the contrary it appeared that courage makes a man fearless, and that fearlessness consists in fearing nothing, or else few things, and those slightly and reluctantly.
3.1.7.1
But perhaps formidable is an ambiguous term, like pleasant and good. Some things are pleasant and good absolutely,whereas others are so to a particular person but absolutely are not so, but on the contrary are bad and unpleasant—all the things that are beneficial for the base, and all those that are pleasant to children qua children.
3.1.8.1
And similarly some things are formidable absolutely and others to a particular person: thus the things that the coward qua coward fears are some of them not formidable to anybody and others only slightly formidable, but things that are formidable to most men, and all that are formidable to human nature, we pronounce to be formidable absolutely.
3.1.9.1
But the brave man is fearless in regard to them, and endures formidable things of this sort, which are formidable to him in one way but in another way are not—they are formidable to him qua human being, but qua brave not formidable except slightly, or not at all. Yet such things really are formidable, for they are formidable to most men.
3.1.10.1
Owing to this the brave man’s state of character is praised, because it resembles that of the strong and the healthy. These have those characters not because no labor in the one case or extreme of temperature in the other can crush them, but because they are not affected at all, or only affected slightly, by the things that affect the many or the majority.
3.1.11.1
Therefore whereas the sickly and weak and cowardly are affected also by the afflictions commonly felt, only more quickly and to a greater extent than the mass of men, the healthy, strong and brave, although affected by the very great afflictions, are affected by them more slowly and less than the mass of men, and moreover they are entirely unaffected or only slightly affected by things that affect the mass.
3.1.12.1
But the question is raised whether to the brave man nothing is formidable, and whether he would be insensible to fear. Or is it not possible that he may feel fear in the way described? For courage is following reason, and reason bids us choose what is fine. Hence he who endures formidable things not on account of reason is either out of his mind or daring,
3.1.13.1
but only he who does so from motives of honor is fearless and brave. The coward, therefore, fears even things that he ought not to fear, and the daring man is bold even about things about which he ought not to be bold, but the brave man alone does both as he ought, and is intermediate in this respect, for he feels both confidence and fear about what ever things reason bids; but reason does not bid him endure things that are extremely painful and destructive, unless they are fine.
3.1.14.1
The daring man, therefore, faces such things with confidence even if reason does not bid him face them, and the coward does not face them even if it does, but only the brave man faces them if reason bids.
3.1.15.1
There are five kinds of courage so called by analogy, because brave men of these kinds endure the same things as the really courageous but not for the same reasons. One is civic courage; this is courage due to a sense of shame. Second is military courage; this is due to experience and to knowledge, not of what is formidable, as Socrates said, but of ways of encountering what is formidable.
3.1.16.1
Third is the courage due to inexperience and ignorance, that makes children and madmen face things rushing on them, or grasp snakes. Another is the courage caused by hope, which often makes those who have had a stroke of luck endure dangers,and those who are intoxicated—for wine makes men sanguine.
3.1.17.1
Another is due to some irrational emotion, for example love or passion. For if a man is in love he is more daring than cowardly, and endures many dangers, like the man who murdered the tyrant at Metapontium and the person in Crete in the story; and similarly if a man is under the influence of anger and passion, for passion is a thing that makes him beside himself. Hence wild boars are thought to be brave, though they are not really, for they are so when they are beside themselves, but otherwise they are variable, like daring men.
3.1.18.1
But nevertheless the courage of passion is in the highest degree natural; passion is a thing that does not know defeat, owing to which the young are the best fighters. Civic courage is due to law.
3.1.19.1
But none of these is truly courage, though they are all useful for encouragement in dangers.
3.1.20.1
Up to this point we have spoken about things formidable in general terms, but it will be better to define them more precisely. As a general term the formidable denotes what causes fear, and that is of a property of things that appear capable of causing pain of a destructive kind: for persons expecting some other pain might perhaps experience a different sort of pain and a different feeling, but will not have fear—for example if a man foresaw that he was going to feel the pain felt by the jealous, or the sort of pain felt by the envious or by those who are ashamed.
3.1.21.1
But fear only occurs in the case of pains that seem likely to be of the kind whose nature it is to destroy life. Hence some people who are even very soft about certain things are brave, and some who are hard and enduring are also cowardly.
3.1.22.1
Moreover it is thought to be almost a special property of courage to be of a certain disposition in regard to death and the pain of death; for if a man were such as to be capable of rational endurance in respect of heat and cold and pains of that sort that are not dangerous, but at the same time soft and excessively timid about death, not because of any other feeling but just because it brings destruction, while another man was soft in regard to those pains but impassive as regards death, the former would be thought a coward and the latter brave.
3.1.23.1
For we speak of danger only in the case of such formidable things as bring near to us what causes destruction of that sort, and when this appears near it appears to be danger.
3.1.23.2
The formidable things, therefore, in relation to which we speak of a man as brave are, we have said, those that appear likely to cause pain of the destructive kind—provided that these appear close at hand and not far off, and are or appear to be of a magnitude proportionate to a human being;
3.1.24.1
for some things must necessarily appear fearful to every human being and throw everybody into alarm, since it is quite possible that,just as heat and cold and some of the other forces are above us and above the conditions of the human body, so also are some mental sufferings.
3.1.24.2
Therefore whereas the cowardly and the daring are mistaken owing to their characters, since the coward thinks things not formidable formidable and things slightly formidable extremely formidable, and the daring man on the contrary thinks formidable things perfectly safe and extremely formidable things only slightly formidable, to the brave man on the other hand things seem exactly what they are.
3.1.25.1
Hence a man is not brave if he endures formidable things through ignorance (for instance, if owing to madness he were to endure a flight of thunderbolts), nor if he does so owing to passion when knowing the greatness of the danger, as the Celts take arms and march against the waves ; and in general, the courage of barbarians has an element of passion.
3.1.26.1
And some men endure terrors for the sake of other pleasures also—for even passion contains pleasure of a sort, since it is combined with hope of revenge. But nevertheless neither if a man endures death for the sake of this pleasure nor for another, nor for the sake of avoiding greater pains, would any of these persons justly be termed brave.
3.1.27.1
For if dying were pleasant, profligates would be dying constantly, owing to lack of self-control, just as even as it is, when, although death itself is not pleasant, things that cause it are, many men through lack of self control knowingly encounter it; none of whom would be thought brave, even though he were thought to die quite readily. Nor yet are any of those brave who, as many men do, commit suicide to escape from trouble, as Agathon says: The base among mankind, by toil o'ercome, Conceive a love of death.
3.1.27.2
As also Cheiron, in the legendary story of the poets, because of the pain from his wound prayed that though immortal he might die.
3.1.28.1
And in like manner to these, all who face dangers because of experience are not brave; this is how perhaps most of the military class face dangers. For the fact is the exact opposite of the view of Socrates, who thought that bravery was knowledge: sailors who know how to go aloft are not daring through knowing what things are formidable, but because they know how to protect themselves against the dangers; also courage is not merely what makes men more daring fighters,
3.1.29.1
for in that case strength and wealth would be courage—as Theognis puts it: For every man by poverty subdued.
3.1.29.2
But manifestly some men do face emergencies in spite of being cowards, owing to experience, and they do so because they do not think that there is any danger, as they know how to protect themselves. A proof of this is that when they think that they have no protection and that the cause of alarm is now close at hand, they turn tail.
3.1.30.1
But among all such causes, it is when shame makes men face what is alarming that they would appear to be bravest, as Homer says Hector faced the danger of encountering Achilles: And shame on Hector seized— Source unknown and Polydamas will be the first to taunt me.
3.1.31.1
Civic courage is this kind. But true courage is neither this nor any of the others, though it resembles them, as does the courage of wild animals, which are led by passion to rush to meet the blow. For it is not from fear that he will incur disgrace that a man ought to stand his ground, nor from motives of anger, nor because he does not think that he will be killed or because he has forces to protect him, for in that case he will not think that there is really anything to be afraid of.
3.1.32.1
But, since indeed all goodness involves purposive choice (it has been said before what we mean by this—goodness makes a man choose everything for the sake of some object, and that object is what is fine), it is clear that courage being a form of goodness will make a man face formidable things for some object, so that he does not do it through ignorance (for it rather makes him judge correctly), nor yet for pleasure, but because it is fine, since in a case where it is not fine but insane he will not face them, for then it would be base to do so.
3.1.33.1
We have now given an account that is fairly adequate for our present procedure of the kind of things in relation to which Courage is a middle state, and between what vices and for what reason it is this, and what is the power that formidable things exercise.
3.2.1.1
We must next attempt to decide about Temperance and Profligacy. The term profligate (unchaste) has a variety of meanings. It means the man who has not been (as it were) chastised or cured, just as undivided means one that has not been divided; and these terms include both one capable of the process and one not capable of it: undivided means both that which cannot be divided and that which though it can be has not been;
3.2.2.1
and similarly with unchaste —it denotes both that which is by nature incapable of chastening and that which, though capable, has not actually been chastened in respect of the errors as regards which the temperate man acts rightly, as is the case with children; for of them it is in this sense that the term unchaste is used,
3.2.3.1
whereas another use of it again refers to persons hard to cure or entirely incurable by chastisement. But though profligacy has more than one sense, it is clear that the profligate are concerned with certain pleasures and pains and that they differ from one another and from the other vicious characters in being disposed in a certain manner towards these; and we described previously the way in which we apply the term profligacy by analogy.
3.2.4.1
Persons on the other hand who owing to insensitiveness are uninfluenced by these pleasures are called by some people insensitive and by others are designated by other names of the same sort;
3.2.5.1
but the state is not a very familiar one nor of common occurrence, because all men err more in the other direction, and susceptibility and sensitiveness to pleasures of this sort are natural to everybody. It specially attaches to persons like the boors who are a stock character in comedy—people who steer clear of pleasures even in moderate and necessary indulgences.
3.2.6.1
And since the temperate character is shown in connection with pleasures, it follows that it is also related to certain desires. We must, therefore, ascertain what these are. For the temperate man is not temperate about all pleasures nor about everything pleasant, but apparently about the objects of two of the senses, taste and touch, and in reality about the objects of touch.
3.2.7.1
For the temperate man is not concerned with the pleasure of beautiful things (apart from sexual desire) or pain caused by ugly things, the medium of which is sight, nor with the pleasure of harmonious sounds or pain of discords conveyed through the medium of hearing, nor yet with the pleasures and pains of smell, derived from good and bad scents; for neither is anyone termed profligate because of being sensitive or not sensitive to sensations of that sort—
3.2.8.1
for example, a man would not be considered profligate if when looking at a beautiful statue or horse or person, or listening to someone singing, he did not wish for food or drink or sexual indulgence but only wished to look at the beautiful objects or listen to the music,—any more than the persons held spell-bound in the abode of the Sirens.
3.2.9.1
Temperance and profligacy have to do with those two sorts of sensory objects in relation to which alone the lower animals also happen to be sensitive and to feel pleasure and pain—the objects of taste and of touch,
3.2.10.1
whereas about virtually all the pleasures of the other senses alike animals are clearly so constituted as to be insensitive— e.g. harmonious sound, or beauty; for clearly they are not affected in any degree worth speaking of by the mere sight of beautiful objects or by listening to musical sounds, except possibly in the case of some miraculous occurrences. Nor yet are they sensitive to good or bad smells, although it is true that all their senses are keener than man’s;
3.2.11.1
but even the smells they enjoy are those that have agreeable associations, and are not intrinsically agreeable. By smells not intrinsically agreeable I mean those that we enjoy because of either anticipation or recollection, for example the smell of things to eat or drink, for we enjoy these scents on account of a different pleasure, that of eating or drinking; by intrinsically agreeable I mean scents such as those of flowers (this is the reason of Stratonicus’s neat remark that the scent of flowers is beautiful but that of things to eat and drink sweet).
3.2.12.1
For even the pleasures of taste are not all attractive to animals, nor are those perceived with the tip of the tongue, but those perceived by the throat, the sensation of which seems more like touch than taste; so that gourmands do not pray that they may have a long tongue but a crane’s gullet, like Philoxenus son of Eryxis.
3.2.13.1
It follows that broadly speaking profligacy must be considered to be related to the objects of touch, and likewise it is with pleasures of that sort that the profligate is concerned;for tippling and gluttony and lechery and gormandizing and the like all have to do with the sensations specified, and these are the departments into which profligacy is divided.
3.2.14.1
But nobody is called profligate if he exceeds in regard to the pleasures of sight or hearing or smell; those errors we criticize without severe rebuke, and generally all the things included under the term lack of self-control : the uncontrolled are not profligate, yet they are not temperate.
3.2.15.1
Therefore the person of such a character as to be deficient in all the enjoyments which practically everybody must share and must enjoy, is insensitive (or whatever the proper term is), and he that exceeds in them is profligate.
3.2.16.1
For all people by nature enjoy these things, and conceive desires for them, without being or being called profligate, for they do not exceed by feeling more joy than they ought when they get them nor more pain than they ought when they do not get them; nor yet are they unfeeling, for they do not fall short in feeling joy or pain, but rather exceed.
3.2.17.1
And since there are excess and deficiency in regard to these things, it is clear that there is also a middle state, and that this state of character is the best one, and is the opposite of both the others. Hence if temperance is the best state of character in relation to the things with which the profligate is concerned, the middle state in regard to the pleasant objects of sense mentioned will be Temperance, being a middle state between profligacy and insensitiveness: the excess will be Profligacy, and the deficiency will either be nameless or will be denoted by the terms mentioned.
3.2.18.1
We shall have to define the class of pleasures concerned more exactly in our discussion of Self-control and Lack of Control later on.
3.3.1.1
And also the nature of Gentleness and Harshness must be ascertained in the same way. For we see that the term gentle is concerned with the pain that arises from passion—a man is gentle by being disposed in a certain way towards that pain. And in our diagram we opposed to the irascible and harsh and fierce man (for all such traits belong to the same disposition) the slavish and spiritless man;
3.3.2.1
for these are perhaps the most usual words to denote those whose passion is not aroused even at all the things at which it ought to be, but who undergo insulting treatment readily and meet slights with humility; since as opposed to feeling the pain that we call passion quickly, extremely or for a long time there is feeling it slowly, slightly, or for a short time.
3.3.3.1
And since, as we said in the other cases, so here also there is excess and deficiency (for the harsh man is the sort of man that feels this emotion too quickly, too long, at the wrong time, with the wrong kind of people, and with many people,while the slavish man is the opposite), it is clear that there is also some body who is at the middle point in the inequality.
3.3.4.1
Since, therefore, both those states of character are wrong, it is clear that the state midway between them is right, for it is neither too hasty nor too slow-tempered, nor does it get angry with the people with whom it ought not nor fail to get angry with those with whom it ought. So that since the best state of character in regard to those feelings is gentleness, Gentleness also would be a middle state, and the gentle man would be midway between the harsh man and the slavish man.
3.4.1.1
Greatness of Spirit and Magnificence and Liberality are also middle states. Liberality is the mean in regard to the acquisition and expenditure of wealth. The man who is more pleased than he ought to be by all acquisition and more pained than he ought to be by all expenditure is mean, he that feels both feelings less than he ought is prodigal, and he that feels both as he ought is liberal (what I mean by as he ought, both in this and in the other cases, is as right principle directs).
3.4.2.1
And since the two former characters consist in excess and deficiency, and where there are extremes there is also a mean, and that mean is best, there being a single best for each kind of action, a single thing, it necessarily follows that liberality is a middle state between prodigality and meanness as regards getting and parting with wealth.
3.4.3.1
But the terms wealth and art of wealth we use in two senses, since one way of using an article of property, for example a shoe or a cloak, is proper to the article itself, another is accidental, though not as using a shoe for a weight would be an accidental use of it, but for example selling it or letting it on hire, for these uses do employ it as a shoe.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0086.tlg009.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.