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and cowardly in contrast
with a rash man; similarly a temperate man appears profligate in contrast with a man
insensible to pleasure and pain, but insensible in contrast with a profligate; and a
liberal man seems prodigal in contrast with a mean man, mean in contrast with one who is
prodigal.
[3]
Hence either extreme character tries to push
the middle character towards the other extreme; a coward calls a brave man rash and a rash
man calls him a coward, and correspondingly in other cases.
[4]
But while all three dispositions are thus opposed to one another, the greatest degree of
contrariety exists between the two extremes. For the extremes are farther apart from each
other than from the mean, just as great is farther from small and small from great than
either from equal.
[5]
Again1 some extremes show a certain likeness to the mean—for
instance, Rashness resembles Courage, Prodigality Liberality, whereas the extremes display
the greatest unlikeness to one another. But it is things farthest apart from each other
that logicians define as contraries, so that the farther apart things are the more
contrary they are.
[6]
And in some cases
1 This sentence should perhaps follow the next one, as it gives a second test of opposition, viz. unlikeness. However, unlikeness and remoteness are blended together in 8.7.