Kitap 3
21
We have then now discussed in outline the virtues in general, having indicated their genus [namely, that it is a mean, and a dispositionThis clause looks like an interpolation: ἕξις is the genus of virtue, Bk. 2.5 fin., 6 init., μεσότης its differentia, 2.6.5,17.] and having shown that they render us apt to do the same actions as those by which they are produced,See 2.2.8. and to do them in the way in which right reason may enjoinSee 2.2.2. This clause in the mss. follows the next one.; and that they depend on ourselves and are voluntary.See 5.2 and 20.This section some editors place before 5.21, but it is rather a footnote to 5.14; and the opening words of 5.23 imply that a digression has been made.
22
But our dispositions are not voluntary in the same way as are our actions. Our actions we can control from beginning to end, and we are conscious, of them at each stage.τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα seems to bear a somewhat different sense here from 1.15, ἡ καθ’ ἕκαστα ( ἄγνοια). With our dispositions on the other hand, though we can control their beginnings, each separate addition to them is imperceptible, as is the case with the growth of a disease; though they are voluntary in that we were free to employ our capacities in the one way or the other.
23
But to resume, let us now discuss the virtues severally, defining the nature of each, the class of objects to which it is related, and the way in which it is related to them. In so doing we shall also make it clear how many virtues there are.
