This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
- bekker page : bekker line
- book : chapter : section
and we sometimes praise those who are harsh-tempered as manly, and
fitted to command. It is therefore not easy to pronounce on principle what degree and
manner of error is blameworthy, since this is a matter of the particular circumstances,
and judgement rests with the faculty of perception.
[14]
But
thus much at all events is clear, that the middle disposition is praiseworthy, which leads
us to be angry with the right people for the right things in the right manner and so on,
while the various forms of excess and defect are blameworthy—when of slight
extent, but little so, when greater, more, and when extreme, very blameworthy indeed. It
is clear therefore that we should strive to attain the middle disposition.
[15]
Let this be our account of the dispositions related to anger.6.
In society and the common life and intercourse of conversation and business, some men are
considered to be Obsequious; these are people who complaisantly approve of everything and
never raise objections, but think it a duty to avoid giving pain to those which whom they
come in contact.
[2]
Those on the contrary who object to
everything and do not care in the least what pain they cause, are called Surly or
Quarrelsome.
[3]
Now it is clear that the dispositions
described are blameworthy, and that the middle disposition between them is
praiseworthy—that is, the tendency to acquiesce in the right things, and
likewise to disapprove of the right things, in the right manner.
[4]
But to this no special name has been assigned,