The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

But it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation; there are some whose very names imply badness, as malevolence, shamelessness, envy, and, among acts, adultery, theft, murder. These and all other like things are blamed as being bad in themselves, and not merely in their excess or deficiency. It is impossible therefore to go right in them ; they are always wrong: rightness and wrongness in such things {e.g. in adultery) does not depend upon whether it is the right person and occasion and manner, but the mere doing of any one of them is wrong.

19 It would be equally absurd to look for moderation or excess or deficiency in unjust cowardly or profligate conduct ; for then there would be moderation in excess or deficiency, and excess in excess, and deficiency in deficiency.

20 The fact is that just as there can be no excess

48 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF AKISTOTLE. [Bk. II.

or deficiency in temperance or courage because the mean or moderate amount is, in a sense, an extreme, so in these kinds of conduct also there can be no moderation or excess or dej&ciency, but the acts are wrong however they be done. For, to put it generally, there cannot be moderation in excess or deficiency, nor excess or deficiency in moderation. This must be 7. But it is not cnough to make these general statethe several mcuts [about virtue and vice] : we must go on and apply them to particulars [i.e. to the several virtues and vices]. For in reasoning about matters of conduct general statements are too vague,* and do not convey so much truth as particular propositions. It is with particulars that conduct is concerned : f our statements, therefore, when applied to these particulars, should be found to hold good.

These particulars then [i.e. the several virtues and vices and the several acts and affections with which they deal], we will take from the following table. J

Moderation in the feelings of fear and confidence 2 is courage : of those that exceed, he that exceeds in fearlessness has no name (as often happens), but he that exceeds in confidence is foolhardy, while he that exceeds in fear, but is deficient in confidence, is cowardly.

* Or " cover more ground, but convey less truth than particular propositions," if we read /coi/'t^Tepoi with most manuscripts.

f In a twofold sense : my conduct cannot be virtuous except by exhibiting the particular virtues of justice, temperance, etc. ; again, my conduct cannot be just except by being just in particular cases to particular persons.

X The Greek seems to imply that this is a generally accepted list, but Aristotle repeatedly has to coin names : cf, infra, § 11.

7, l-e.] MORAL VIETUE. 49

Moderation in respect of certain pleasures and colso (though to a less extent) certain pains is temperance, while excess is profligacy. But defectiveness in the matter of these pleasures is hardly ever found, and so this sort of people also have as yet received no name : let us put them down as " void of sensibility."

In the matter of giving and taking money, moderation is liberality, excess and deficiency are prodigality and illiberality. But these two vices exceed and fall hort in contrary ways: the prodigal exceeds in -pending, but falls short in taking ; while the illiberal man exceeds in taking, but falls short in spending.

(For the present we are but giving an outline or summary, and aim at nothing more ; we shall afterwards treat these points in greater detail)