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

But, besides these, there ai-e other dispositions in the matter of money : there is a moderation which is called magnificence (for the magnificent is not the -ame as the liberal man : the former deals with large sums, the latter with small), and an excess which is called bad taste or vulgarity, and a deficiency which is called meanness ; and these vices differ from those which are opposed to liberality : how they differ will be explained later.

With respect to honour and disgrace, there is a moderation which is high-mindedness, an excess which may be called vanity, and a deficiency which is littlemindedness.

But just as we said that liberality is related to magnificence, differing only in that it deals with small sums, so here there is a virtue related to high-minded-

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ness, and differing only in that it is concerned with small instead of great honours. A man may have a due desire for honour, and also more or less than a due desire : he that carries this desire to excess is called ambitious, he that has not enough of it is called unambitious, but he that has the due amount has no name. There are also no abstract names for the characters, except "ambition," corresponding to ambitious. And on this account those who occupy the extremes lay claim to the middle place. And in common parlance, too, the moderate man is sometimes called ambitious and sometimes unambitious, and sometimes the ambitious man is praised and sometimes the unambitious. Why this is we will explain 9 afterwards ; for the present we will follow out our plan and enumerate the other types of character.

In the matter of anger also we find excess and lo deficiency and moderation. The characters themselves hardly have recognized names, but as the moderate man is here called gentle, we will call his character gentleness ; of those who go into extremes, we may take the term wrathful for him who exceeds, with wrathfulness for the vice, and wrathless for him who is deficient, with wrathlessness for his character.

Besides these, there are three kinds of moderation, il bearing some resemblance to one another, and yet different. They all have to do with intercourse in speech and action, but they differ in that one has to do with the truthfulness of this intercourse, while the other two have to do with its pleasantness — one of the two with pleasantness in matters of amusement, the other with pleasantness in all the relations of7, 9-14] MORAL VIRTUE. 51 life. We must therefore speak of these qualities also in order that we may the more plainly see how, in all cases, moderation is praiseworthy, while the extreme courses are neither right nor praiseworthy, but blamable.

In these cases also names are for the most part wanting, but we must trv, here as elsewhere, to coin names ourselves, in order to make our argument clear and easy to follow.

In the matter of truth, then, let us call him who observes the mean a true [or truthful] person, and observance of the mean truth [or truthfulness] : pretence, when it exaggerates, may be called boasting, and the person a boaster ; when it understates, let the names be irony and ironical.

With regard to pleasantness in amusement, he who observes the mean may be called witty, and his character wittiness ; excess may be called buffoonery, and the man a buffoon ; while boorish may stand for the person who is deficient, and boorishness for his character.