48. Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in a medium between two extremes. This is a sound practical doctrine, and, viewed as a metaphysical truth, it is more profound than it appears. It of course means that any virtue, by being carried too far, either in the direction of excess or of deficiency, loses the character, and becomes undeserving of the name of virtue. Thus courage, ἀνδρεία, is a mean between cowardice and rashness. The man who flies from all danger is a coward; the man who rushes on all dangers is madly rash. But the brave man is he who neither flies from all dangers, nor rushes on all dangers, but who faces all dangers which reason directs him in the circumstances to encounter. The virtue of courage is thus a mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness. So he who gives himself up to all pleasures is a voluptuary; and he who refuses all pleasures is austere, insensible, or unsociable. The virtue of temperance, σωφροσύνη, therefore lies in the middle between sensuality and asceticism; sensuality is the excess of self-indulgence; σωφροσύνη is the middle, self-control or temperance; asceticism or insensibility or repugnance to all pleasure is the defect on the opposite side. Aristotle regards this deficiency rather as imaginary than real, for insensibility to pleasure can very seldom or never be laid to the charge of human nature. Indeed, it may be said generally, that all the virtues incline more towards one of the two terms which
