Kitap 3
12
Therefore envy contributes to injustice (for the actions that spring from it affect another person), and righteous indignation to justice, and modesty to temperance (owing to which people even define temperance as a species of emotion), and the sincere and false are respectively wise and foolish.Truthfulness and mendacity contribute to wisdom and folly as νέμεσις and φθόνος do to δικαιοσύνη and ἀδικία, and αἰδώς(and ἀναιδεία) to σωφροσύνη(and ἀκολασία).
13
And the mean is more opposed to the extremes than the extremes are to one another, because the mean does not occur in combination with either extreme, whereas the extremes often do occur in combination with one another, and sometimes the same men are venturesome cowards, or extravagant in some things and illiberal in others, and in general not uniform in a bad way—
14
for when men lack uniformity in a good way, this results in men of the middle characters, since the mean contains both extremes.
14
The opposition existing between the mean and the extremes does not seem to be the same in the case of both the extremes, but sometimes the greater opposition is by way of excess, sometimes by way of deficiency.
15
The causes of this are partly the two first mentioned,Cf. Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1222a 22-b 4. rarity (for example, the rarity of people insensitive to pleasant things) and the fact that the error to which we are more prone seems more opposite to the mean,
