Nicomachean Ethics: Book II

Book II

[Virtue of character]

1

[How a virtue of character is acquired]

Virtue, then, is of two sorts, virtue of thought and virtue / of character.1 Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching; that is why it needs experience and time. Virtue of character <i.e., of êthos> results from habit <ethos>; hence its name ‘ethical’, slightly varied from ‘ethos’.2

§2  Hence it is also clear that none of the virtues of character arises in us naturally. / For if something is by nature in one condition, habituation cannot bring it into another condition. A stone, for instance, by nature moves downwards, and habituation could not make it move upwards, not even if you threw it up ten thousand times to habituate it; nor could habituation make fire move downwards, or bring anything that is by nature in one condition into another condition.  §3  And so the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against / nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit.3

§4  Further, if something arises in us by nature, we first have the capacity for it, and later perform the activity. This is clear in the case of the senses; for we did not acquire them by / frequent seeing or hearing, but we already had them when we exercised them, and did not get them by exercising them. Virtues, by contrast, we acquire, just as we acquire crafts, by having first performed the actions. For we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it; we become builders, for instance, by building, and we become harpists by playing the harp. Similarly, then, we become just / by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.4

§5 What goes on in cities is also evidence for this. For the legislator makes the citizens good by habituating them, and / this is the wish p. 22 of every legislator; if he fails to do it well he misses his goal.5 Correct habituation distinguishes a good political system from a bad one.

§6  Further, the sources and means that develop each virtue also ruin it, just as they do in a craft. For playing the harp makes both good and bad harpists, and it is analogous in the / case of builders and all the rest; for building well makes good builders, and building badly makes bad ones.  §7  Otherwise no teacher would be needed, but everyone would be born a good or a bad craftsman.

It is the same, then, with the virtues. For what we do in our dealings / with other people makes some of us just, some unjust, and what we do in terrifying situations, and the habits of fear or confidence that we acquire, make some of us brave and others cowardly. The same is true of situations involving appetites and anger; for one or another sort of conduct in these situations / makes some people temperate and calm, but other people intemperate and irascible. To sum it up in a single account: a state <of character> results from <the repetition of> similar actions.6

§8 That is why we must perform the right actions, since differences in these imply corresponding differences in the states.7 It is not unimportant, then, to acquire one sort of habit or another, right from our youth. On the contrary, it is / very important, indeed all-important.

2

[Habituation]

[c2] Our present discussion does not aim, as our others do, at study; for the purpose of our examination is not to know what virtue is, but to become good, since otherwise the inquiry / would be of no benefit to us.1 And so we must examine the right ways of acting; for, as we have said, the actions also control the sorts of states we acquire.

§2  First, then, actions should accord with the correct reason.2 That is a common <belief>,3 and let us assume it. We shall discuss it later, and say what the correct reason is and how it is related to the other virtues.

§3  / But let us take it as agreed in advance that every account of the actions we should do4 has to be stated in outline, not exactly. As we also said at the beginning, the type of accounts we demand should accord with the subject matter; and questions about actions and expediency, like questions about health, have no fixed answers.5

p. 23 §4  / While this is the character of our general account, the account of particular cases is still more inexact. For these fall under no craft or profession; the agents themselves must consider in each case what the opportune action is, as doctors and navigators do.6  §5  / The account we offer, then, in our present inquiry is of this inexact sort; still, we must try to offer help.7

§6  First, then, we should observe that these sorts of states naturally tend to be ruined by excess and deficiency. We see this happen with strength and health (for we must use evident cases as witnesses to things that are / not evident).8 For both excessive and deficient exercise ruin bodily strength, and, similarly, too much or too little eating or drinking ruins health, whereas the proportionate amount produces, increases and preserves it.

§7 The same is true, then, of temperance, bravery, and the / other virtues. For if, for instance, someone avoids and is afraid of everything, standing firm against nothing, he becomes cowardly; if he is afraid of nothing at all and goes to face everything, he becomes rash. Similarly, if he gratifies himself with every pleasure and abstains from none, he becomes intemperate; if he avoids them all, as boors do, he becomes / some sort of insensible person. Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.9

§8  But these actions are not only the sources and causes both of the emergence and growth of virtues and of their ruin; the activities of the virtues also consist in these / same actions.10 For this is also true of more evident cases; strength, for instance, arises from eating a lot and from withstanding much hard labour, and it is the strong person who is most capable of these very actions.  §9  It is the same with the virtues. For abstaining from pleasures makes us become temperate, / and once we have become temperate we are most capable / of abstaining from pleasures. It is similar with bravery; habituation in disdain for frightening situations and in standing firm against them makes us become brave, and once we have become brave we shall be most capable of standing firm.

3

[The importance of pleasure and pain]

But we must take the pleasure or pain that supervenes on his / actions to be a sign of the state <of character>.1 For if someone who abstains p. 24 from bodily pleasures enjoys this <abstinence> itself, he is temperate; but if he is grieved by it, he is intemperate.2 Again, if he stands firm against terrifying situations and enjoys it, or at least does not find it painful, he is brave; but if he finds it painful, he is cowardly. For virtue of character is about pleasures and pains.3

/ For pleasure causes us to do base actions, and pain causes us to abstain from fine ones.  §2 That is why we need to have had the appropriate upbringing—right from early youth, as Plato says4—to make us find enjoyment or pain in the right things; for this is the correct education.

§3  Further, virtues are about actions and feelings; but every feeling and every action implies pleasure or / pain;5 hence, for this reason too, virtue is about pleasures and pains.  §4  Corrective treatments also indicate this, since they use pleasures and pains; for correction is a form of medical treatment, and medical treatment naturally operates through contraries.

§5  Further, as we said earlier, every state of soul is naturally related to and about whatever naturally makes / it better or worse; and pleasures and pains make people base, from pursuing and avoiding the wrong ones, at the wrong time, in the wrong ways, or whatever other distinctions of that sort are needed in an account. These <bad effects of pleasure and pain> are the reason why people actually define the virtues as ways of being unaffected / and undisturbed <by pleasures and pains>.6 They are wrong, however, because they speak of being unaffected without qualification, not of being unaffected in the right or wrong way, at the right or wrong time, and the added qualifications.

§6 We assume, then, that virtue is the sort of state that does the best actions concerning pleasures and pains, and that vice is the contrary state.

§7 The following will also make it evident that virtue / and vice are about the same things. For there are three objects of choice—fine, expedient, and pleasant—and three objects of avoidance—their contraries, shameful, harmful, and painful.7 About all these, then, the good person is correct and the bad person is in error, and especially / about pleasure. For pleasure is shared with animals, and implied / by every object of choice, since what is fine and what is expedient appear pleasant as well.

§8  Further, pleasure grows up with all of us from infancy on. That is why it is hard to rub out this feeling that is dyed into our lives. We p. 25 also estimate actions <as well as feelings>, some / of us more, some less, by pleasure and pain.  §9  For this reason, our whole discussion must be about these; for good or bad enjoyment or pain is very important for our actions.

§10  Further, it is more difficult to fight pleasure than to fight spirit—and Heracleitus tells us <how difficult it is to fight spirit>.8 Now both craft and virtue in every case are about / what is more difficult, since a good result is even better when it is more difficult. Hence, for this reason also, the whole discussion, for virtue and political science alike, must consider pleasures and pains; for if we use these well, we shall be good, and if badly, bad.

§11 To sum up: virtue is about pleasures and pains; the / actions that are its sources also increase it or, if they are done badly, ruin it; and its activity is about the same actions as those that are its sources.

4

[Virtuous actions contrasted with virtuous character]

[c3] Someone might be puzzled, however, about what we mean by saying that we become just by doing just actions and become temperate by doing temperate actions.1 For <one might suppose that> if we do grammatical or musical actions, we / are grammarians or musicians, and, similarly, if we do just or temperate actions, we are thereby just or temperate.

§2  Or are actions insufficient in the case of crafts as well?2 For it is possible to produce a grammatical result by chance, or by following someone else’s instructions. To be grammarians, then, we must both produce a grammatical result and produce / it grammatically— that is to say, produce it in accord with the grammatical knowledge in us.

§3  Moreover, in any case, what is true of crafts is not true of ­virtues.3 For the products of a craft determine by their own qualities whether they have been produced well; and so it suffices that they have the right qualities when they have been produced.4 But for actions in accord with the virtues to be done temperately or justly it does not suffice that / they themselves have the right qualities.5 Rather, the agent must also be in the right state when he does them. First, he must know <that he is doing them>6; secondly, he must decide on them, and decide on them for themselves; and, thirdly, he must also do them from a firm and unchanging state.

p. 26 As conditions for / having a craft, these three do not count, except for the bare knowing.7 As a condition for having a virtue, however, the knowing counts for nothing, or <rather> for only a little, whereas the other two conditions are very important, indeed all-important. And we achieve these other two conditions / by the frequent doing of just and temperate actions.

§4  Hence actions are called just or temperate when they are the sort that a just or temperate person would do. But the just and temperate person is not the one who <merely> does these actions, but the one who also does them in the way in which just or temperate people do them.

§5  / It is correct, then, to say that a person comes to be just from doing just actions and temperate from doing temperate actions; for no one has the least prospect of becoming good from failing to do them.

§6 The many, however, do not do these actions. They take refuge in arguments, thinking that they are doing philosophy, and that this is the way to become excellent people. They / are like a sick person who listens attentively to the doctor, but acts on none of his instructions. Such a course of treatment will not improve the state of the sick person’s body; nor will the many improve the state of their souls by this attitude to philosophy.8

5

[Virtue of character: its genus]

[c4] Next we must examine what virtue is. Since there are three / conditions arising in the soul—feelings, capacities, and states—virtue must be one of these.1

§2  By feelings I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hate, longing, jealousy, pity, and in general whatever implies pleasure or pain. By capacities I mean what we have when we are said to / be capable of these feelings—capable of being angry, for instance, or of feeling pain, or of feeling pity. By states I mean what we have when we are well or badly off in relation to feelings.2 If, for instance, our feeling is too intense or slack, we are badly off in relation to anger, but if it is intermediate, we are well off; the same is true in the other cases.

§3  First, then, neither virtues nor vices are feelings.3 For / we are called excellent or base insofar as we have virtues or vices, not p. 27 insofar as we have feelings. Further, we are neither praised nor blamed insofar as we have feelings; for we do not praise the angry or the frightened person, and do not / blame the person who is simply angry, but only the person who is angry in a particular way. We are praised or blamed, however, insofar as we have virtues or vices.4  §4  Further, we are angry and afraid without decision; but the virtues are decisions of some kind, or require decision.5 Besides, insofar as / we have feelings, we are said to be moved; but insofar as we have virtues or vices, we are said to be in some condition rather than moved.

§5  For these reasons the virtues are not capacities either; for we are neither called good nor called bad, nor are we praised or blamed, insofar as we are simply capable of feelings. Further, while we have / capacities by nature, we do not become good or bad by nature; we have discussed this before.6

§6  If, then, the virtues are neither feelings nor capacities, the remaining possibility is that they are states. And so we have said what the genus of virtue is.

6

[Virtue of character: its differentia]

[c5] But we must say not only, as we already have, that it is / a state, but also what sort of state it is.1

§2  It should be said, then, that every virtue causes its possessors to be in a good state and to perform their functions well.2 The virtue of eyes, for instance, makes the eyes and their functioning excellent, because it makes us see well; and similarly, / the virtue of a horse makes the horse excellent, and thereby good at galloping, at carrying its rider, and at standing steady in the face of the enemy.  §3  If this is true in every case, the virtue of a human being will likewise be the state that makes a human being good and makes him perform his function well.

§4  / We have already said how this will be true, and it will also be evident from our next remarks, if we consider the sort of nature that virtue has.3

In everything continuous and divisible we can take more, less, and equal, and each of them either in the object itself or relative to us; and the equal is some intermediate between excess and deficiency.  §5  / By the intermediate in the object I mean what is equidistant from p. 28 each extremity; this is one and the same for all. But relative to us the intermediate is what is neither superfluous nor deficient; this is not one, and is not the same for all.4

§6  If, for instance, ten are many and two are few, we take six as intermediate in the object, since it exceeds <two> and is exceeded / <by ten> by an equal amount, <four>.  §7 This is what is intermediate by numerical proportion. But that is not how / we must take the intermediate that is relative to us. For if, ten pounds <of food>, for instance, are a lot for someone to eat, and two pounds a little, it does not follow that the trainer will prescribe six, since this might also be either a little or a lot for the person who is to take it—for Milo <the athlete> a little, but for the beginner in gymnastics a lot; and the same is / true for running and wrestling.  §8  In this way every scientific expert avoids excess and deficiency and seeks and chooses what is intermediate—but intermediate relative to us, not in the object.

§9 This, then, is how each science produces its product well, by concentrating on what is intermediate and making the product / conform to that.5 This, indeed, is why people regularly comment on well-made products that nothing could be added or subtracted; they assume that excess or deficiency ruins a good <result>, but the mean preserves it. Good craftsmen also, we say, concentrate on what is intermediate when they produce / their product. And since virtue, like nature, is better and more exact than any craft, it will also aim at what is intermediate.6

§10  By virtue I mean virtue of character; for this is about feelings and actions, and these admit of excess, deficiency, and an intermediate condition. We can be afraid, for instance, or be confident, or have appetites, or get angry, or feel pity, and in general have pleasure / or pain, both too much and too little, and in both ways not well.  §11  But having these feelings at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue.  §12  Similarly, actions also admit of excess, deficiency, and an intermediate condition.

/ Now virtue is about feelings and actions, in which excess is in error and deficiency is blamed,7 whereas the intermediate condition is praised and is correct, which are both proper to virtue.  §13 Virtue, then, is a mean, insofar as it aims at what is intermediate.

p. 29 §14  Moreover, there are many ways to be in error—for badness / is proper to the indeterminate, as the Pythagoreans pictured it, and good to the determinate. But there is only one way to be correct. That is why error is easy and correctness is difficult, since it is easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it. And so for this reason also excess and deficiency are proper / to vice, the mean to virtue; ‘for we are noble in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways.’8

§15 [c6] Virtue, then, is a state that decides, consisting in / a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined by reference to reason, that is to say, to the reason by reference to which the prudent person would define it.9 It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.

§16  It is a mean for this reason also: Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are / excessive, in feelings or in actions, but virtue finds and chooses what is intermediate.

§17 That is why virtue, as far as its essence and the account stating what it is are concerned, is a mean, but, as far as the best <condition> and the good <result> are concerned, it is an extremity.

§18  Now not every action or feeling admits of the mean.10 For / the names of some automatically include baseness—for instance, spite, shamelessness, envy <among feelings>, and adultery, theft, murder, among actions.11 For all of these and similar things are called by these names because they themselves, not their excesses or deficiencies, are base. Hence in doing these things we can never be correct, but / must invariably be in error. We cannot do them well or not well—by committing adultery, for instance, with the right woman at the right time in the right way. On the contrary, it is true without qualification that to do any of them is to be in error.

§19  <To think these admit of a mean>, therefore, is like thinking that unjust or cowardly or intemperate action also admits / of a mean, an excess and a deficiency. If it did, there would be a mean of excess, a mean of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of deficiency.  §20  On the contrary, just as there is no excess or deficiency of temperance or of bravery (since the intermediate is a sort of extreme), so also there is no mean of these vicious actions either, but whatever way anyone does them, he is in error. For in general there is no mean / of excess or of deficiency, and no excess or deficiency of a mean.

7

[The particular virtues of character]

[c7] However, we must not only state this general account but also apply it to the particular cases. For among accounts / concerning actions, though the general ones are common to more cases, the specific ones are truer, since actions are about particular cases, and our account must accord with these.1 Let us, then, find these from the chart.2

§2  First, then, in feelings of fear and confidence the mean is / bravery. The excessively fearless person is nameless (indeed many cases are nameless), and the one who is excessively confident is rash. The one who is excessive in fear and deficient in confidence is cowardly.

§3  / In pleasures and pains—though not in all types, and in pains also, <but> less than in pleasures—the mean is temperance and the excess intemperance. People deficient in pleasure are not often found, which is why they also lack even a name; let us call them insensible.

§4  In giving and taking money the mean is generosity, / the excess wastefulness, and the deficiency ungenerosity. Here the vicious people have contrary excesses and defects; for the wasteful person is excessive in spending and deficient in taking, whereas the ungenerous person is excessive in taking and deficient in spending.  §5  At the moment we are speaking in / outline and summary, and that is enough; later we shall define these things more exactly.

§6  In questions of money there are also other conditions. Another mean is magnificence; for the magnificent person differs from the generous by being concerned with large matters, while the generous person is concerned with small. The / excess is ostentation and vulgarity, and the deficiency is stinginess. These differ from the vices related to generosity in ways we shall describe later.

§7  In honour and dishonour the mean is magnanimity, the excess something called a sort of vanity, and the deficiency pusillanimity.  §8  / And just as we said that generosity differs from magnificence in its concern with small matters, similarly there is a virtue concerned with small honours, differing in the same way from magnanimity, which is concerned with great honours. For honour can be desired either in the right way or more or less than is right. If someone desires it to excess, he is called an honour-lover, and if his desire is deficient / he is called indifferent to honour, but if he is intermediate he has no name. The corresponding conditions have p. 31 no name either, except the condition of the honour-lover, which is called honour-loving.

This is why people at the extremes lay claim to the intermediate area. Moreover, we also sometimes call the intermediate person an honour-lover, and sometimes call him indifferent to honour; and sometimes we praise the honour-lover, sometimes the person indifferent to / honour.3  §9 We will mention later the reason we do this; for the moment, let us speak of the other cases in the way we have laid down.

§10  / Anger also admits of an excess, deficiency, and mean. These are all practically nameless; but since we call the intermediate person calm, let us call the mean calmness. Among the extreme people let the excessive person be irascible, and his vice irascibility, and let the deficient person be a sort of inirascible person, and his deficiency inirascibility.

§11  / There are also three other means, somewhat similar to one another, but different. For they are all concerned with common dealings in conversations and actions, but differ insofar as one is concerned with truth-telling in these areas, the other two with sources of pleasure, some of which are found in amusement, and the others in daily life in general. Hence we should also discuss these states, so that we can better / observe that in every case the mean is praiseworthy, whereas the extremes are neither praiseworthy nor correct, but blameworthy. Most of these cases are also nameless, and we must try, as in the other cases also, to supply names ourselves, to make things clear and easy to follow.

§12  / In truth-telling, then, let us call the intermediate person truthful, and the mean truthfulness; pretence that overstates will be boastfulness, and the person who has it boastful; pretence that understates will be self-deprecation, and the person who has it self-deprecating.

§13  In sources of pleasure in amusements let us call the intermediate person witty, and the condition wit; the excess / buffoonery and the person who has it a buffoon; and the deficient person a sort of boor and the state boorishness.

In the other sources of pleasure, those in daily life, let us call the person who is pleasant in the right way friendly, and the mean state friendliness. If someone goes to excess with no <ulterior> aim, he will be ingratiating; if he does it for his own advantage, a flatterer. The deficient person, / unpleasant in everything, will be a sort of quarrelsome and ill-tempered person.

p. 32 §14 There are also means in feelings and about feelings. Shame, for instance, is not a virtue, but the person prone to shame as well as <the virtuous people we have described> receives praise. For here also one person is called intermediate, and another—the person excessively prone to shame, who is ashamed about everything—is called excessive; the / person who is deficient in shame or never feels shame at all is said to have no sense of disgrace; and the intermediate / one is called prone to shame.

§15  Proper indignation is the mean between envy and spite; these conditions are concerned with pleasure and pain at what happens to our neighbours. For the properly indignant person feels pain when someone does well undeservedly; the / envious person exceeds him by feeling pain when anyone does well, while the spiteful person is so deficient in feeling pain that he actually enjoys <other people’s misfortunes>.4

§16 There will also be an opportunity elsewhere to speak of these.5 We must consider justice after these. Since it is spoken of in more than one way, we shall distinguish its two types and say how each of them is a mean. / Similarly, we must also consider the virtues that belong to reason.

8

[Relations between mean and extreme states]

[c8] Among these three conditions, then, two are vices—one of excess, one of deficiency—and one—the mean—is virtue. In a way each of them is opposed to each of the others, since each extreme is contrary both to the intermediate condition and to the other extreme, while the intermediate is contrary / to the extremes.

§2  For, just as the equal is greater in comparison to the smaller, and smaller in comparison to the greater, so also the intermediate states are excessive in comparison to the deficiencies and deficient in comparison to the excesses—both in feelings and in actions. / For the brave person, for instance, appears rash in comparison to the coward, and cowardly in comparison to the rash person; the temperate person appears intemperate in comparison to the insensible person, and insensible in comparison with the intemperate person; and the generous person appears wasteful in comparison to the ungenerous, and ungenerous in comparison to the wasteful person.1  §3 That is why each of the extreme people tries to push the intermediate / person to the other extreme, so p. 33 that the coward, for instance, calls the brave person rash, and the rash person calls him a coward, and similarly in the other cases.

§4  Since these conditions of soul are opposed to each other in these ways, the extremes are more contrary to each other than to the intermediate. For they are further from each other than from the intermediate, just as the large is further from / the small, and the small from the large, than either is from the equal.

§5  Further, sometimes one extreme—rashness or wastefulness, for instance—appears somewhat like the intermediate state—bravery or generosity. But the extremes are most unlike one another; and the things that are furthest apart from each other / are defined as contraries. And so the things that are further apart are more contrary.

§6  / In some cases the deficiency, in others the excess, is more opposed to the intermediate condition. For instance, cowardice, the deficiency, not rashness, the excess, is more opposed to bravery, whereas intemperance, the excess, not insensibility, the deficiency, is more opposed / to temperance.

§7 This happens for two reasons: One reason is derived from the object itself. Since sometimes one extreme is closer and more similar to the intermediate condition, we oppose the contrary extreme, more than this closer one, to the intermediate condition.2 Since rashness, for instance, seems to be closer and more similar to bravery, / and cowardice less similar, we oppose cowardice more than rashness to bravery; for what is further from the intermediate condition seems to be more contrary to it. This, then, is one reason, derived from the object itself.

§8 The other reason is derived from ourselves. For when we ourselves have some natural tendency to one extreme more than to the other, this extreme appears more opposed to the intermediate condition. Since, for instance, we have more of a natural / tendency to ­pleasure, we drift more easily towards intemperance than towards orderliness. Hence we say that an extreme is more contrary if we naturally develop more in that direction; and this is why intemperance is more contrary to temperance, since it is the excess <of pleasure>.

9

[How can we reach the mean?]

[c9] / We have said enough, then, to show that virtue of character is a mean and what sort of mean it is; that it is a mean between two vices, p. 34 one of excess and one of deficiency; and that it is a mean because it aims at the intermediate condition in feelings and actions.

§2 That is why it is also hard work to be excellent. For in each case / it is hard work to find the intermediate; for instance, not everyone, but only one who knows, finds the midpoint in a circle. So also getting angry, or giving and spending money, is easy and everyone can do it; but doing it to the right person, in the right amount, at the right time, for the right end, and in the right way is no longer easy, nor can everyone do it.1 Hence / doing these things well is rare, praiseworthy, and fine.

§3 That is why anyone who aims at the intermediate condition must first of all steer clear of the more contrary extreme, following the advice that Calypso also gives—‘Hold the ship outside the spray and surge.’2 For one extreme is more in error, the other less.  §4  Since, therefore, it is hard to hit the intermediate extremely accurately,3 the second-best tack, as they say, is / to take the lesser of the evils. We shall succeed best in this / by the method we describe.

We must also examine what we ourselves drift into easily. For different people have different natural tendencies towards different goals, and we shall come to know our own tendencies / from the pleasure or pain that arises in us.  §5 We must drag ourselves off in the contrary direction; for if we pull far away from error, as they do in straightening bent wood, we shall reach the intermediate condition.

§6  And in everything we must beware above all of pleasure and its sources; for we are already biased in its favour when we come to judge it. Hence we must react to it as the elders / reacted to Helen, and on each occasion repeat what they said; for if we do this, and send it off, we shall be less in error.4

§7  In summary, then, if we do these things we shall best be able to reach the intermediate condition. But presumably this is difficult, especially in particular cases, since it is not easy to / define the way we should be angry, with whom, about what, for how long. For sometimes, indeed, we ourselves praise deficient people and call them calm, and sometimes praise quarrelsome people and call them manly.

§8  Still, we are not blamed if we deviate a little in excess or deficiency from / doing well, but only if we deviate a long way, since then we are easily noticed. But how great and how serious a deviation receives blame is not easy to define in an account; for nothing else p. 35 perceptible is easily defined either. Such things are among particulars, and the judgment depends on perception.5

§9 This is enough, then, to make it clear that in every case the intermediate / state is praised, but we must sometimes incline towards the excess, sometimes towards the deficiency; for that is the easiest way to hit the intermediate and good condition.