[1222a]
[1]
But we say that men are wicked owing to pleasures and
pains, through pursuing and avoiding the wrong ones or in the wrong
way. Hence all men readily define the virtues as insensitiveness or
tranquillity in regard to pleasures and pains, and the vices by the
opposite qualities.But since it has been
assumed1 that goodness is a state of character of a sort that causes
men to be capable of doing the best actions and gives them the best
disposition in regard to the greatest good, and the best and greatest
good is that which is in accordance with right principle, and this is
the mean between excess and deficiency relative to ourselves, it would
necessarily follow that moral goodness corresponds with each
particular middle state and is concerned with certain mean points in
pleasures and pains and pleasant and painful things. And this middle state will
sometimes be in pleasures (for even in these there is excess and
deficiency), sometimes in pains, sometimes in both. For he that
exceeds in feeling delight exceeds in the pleasant, and he that
exceeds in feeling pain exceeds in the opposite—and this
whether his feelings are excessive absolutely or excessive in relation
to some standard, for instance are felt more than ordinary men feel
them; whereas the good man feels in the proper
way.— And
since there is a certain state of character which results in its
possessor's being in one instance such as to accept an excess and in
another such as to accept a deficiency of the same thing,
[20]
it follows that as these actions
are contrary to each other and to the mean, so also the states of
character that cause them are contrary to each other and to
virtue.It comes about, however, that sometimes all
the oppositions are more evident, sometimes those on the side of
excess, in some cases those on the side of deficiency. The cause of this contrariety
is that the resemblance does not always reach the same point of
inequality in regard to the middle, but sometimes it may pass over
more quickly from the excess, sometimes from the deficiency, to the
middle state, the person farther removed from which seems to be more
contrary: for instance, with regard to the body excess is more healthy
and nearer the middle than deficiency in the case of exercises but
deficiency than excess in the case of food. Consequently the states of
will favorable to athletic training will be variously favorable to
health according to the two different fields of choice—in
the one case2 the over-energetic men <will be
nearer the mean than the slack ones>, in the other3 the too hardy <will be nearer the mean than the
self-indulgent ones>; and also the character contrary to the
moderate and rational will be in the one case the slack and not both
the slack and the over-energetic, and in the other case the
self-indulgent and not the man who goes hungry. And this comes about because
from the start our nature does not diverge from the mean in the same
way as regards everything, but in energy we are deficient and in
self-indulgence excessive, and this is also the same with regard the
spirit. And we class as
contrary to the mean the disposition to which we, and most men, are
more liable to err; whereas the other passes unnoticed as if
non-existent, because its rarity makes it not observed. For instance we count anger
the contrary of gentleness and the passionate man the contrary of the
gentle;
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