the courageous act for its intrinsic goodness or noblenessis to be distinguished from the "civic courage" of which the motive is the fear of disgrace or pain, from the confidence due to experience, or to a sanguine disposition, or to ignorance, and from mere physical courage or high spirit; this last, however, is, as it were, a raw material, which may be developed into Virtue by implanting the higher motive.

As Courage is restricted to war, Temperance is similarly, in accordance with usage, taken as solely concerned with the pleasures of hunger, thirst, and sex. The temperate man abhors the vicious indulgence of these appetites, and does not take excessive delight even in a lawful satisfaction of them; nor does he unduly long for such pleasures or feel pain at their absence. It is noteworthy that error on the side of deficiency, in the case of this virtue-undue insensibility to the pleasures of appetite-is, according to Aristotle, hardly to be found in human beings. It is to be observed, further, that the important distinction between Virtue in the strict sense, which implies the performance of right actions without internal conflict, and "Self-restraint (eykpáтea), which involves a struggle with misdirected impulses, is treated by Aristotle1 as specially belonging to the sphere of Temperance,-chiefly, it would seem, because in ordinary Greek usage the terms denoting Self-restraint and its opposite (åkpaσía) were in strictness applicable only to

1 I do not regard Book VII. of the Nicomachean Ethics, in which this topic is discussed, or Books V. and VI., as being Aristotle's work in the same sense in which the rest of the treatise is. But I conceive that they were intended by the disciple who composed them to convey pure Aristotelian doctrine; and that therefore they sufficiently justify the brief and general statement of Aristotle's view given in the paragraph to which this note is appended; and also what is said later on of Justice, Intellectual Excellences, and Practical Reasoning.

the case of bodily appetites, their application to anger or other non-rational impulses being regarded as secondary and metaphorical.

After Courage and Temperance, which are concerned with the regulation of the primitive or animal aversions and appetites, Aristotle gives two pairs of virtues which are occupied respectively with the two chief objects of man's more refined and civilised desire and pursuit-Wealth and Honour; distinguishing in each case the kind of excellence which is possible only to a select few from that which is more widely attainable. Thus, in the case of wealth, persons of moderate means may exercise Liberality—a virtue chiefly shown in giving or spending ungrudgingly but without lavishness on proper objects, though it also involves abstinence from all disgraceful sources of gain; but the more brilliant quality of Magnificence is only attainable by persons of large estate and high social position, to whom it is becoming to make grand offerings to the gods, or give splendid banquets, or equip choruses or ships of war in imposing style. The performance of these expensive functions was a kind of extra taxation imposed on wealthy citizens, by law or custom, at Athens and elsewhere; but it is plain that they were often eagerly seized as occasions of display, and that the excess which the magnificent man is required to avoid, the vulgar extravagance of "entertaining one's club with a wedding-feast, and dressing one's comic chorus in purple,” was a type illustrated in actual life.

Similarly the due pursuit of Honour or Reputation, by men generally, is regarded by Aristotle as the province of a special virtue; for which, however, he finds no name in the current moral vocabulary-both "Ambitious" and its opposite "Unambitious" being sometimes used for censure and some

times for eulogy. But he is specially interested in delineating the attitude of mind in respect of this "greatest of external goods," exhibited by the "High-minded man," who, possessing a rare degree of merit, values himself as he deserves. Such High-mindedness is a kind of crown of accomplished virtue, since it at once presupposes other virtues for any marked vice would be incompatible with the rare degree of merit which it implies—and enhances them. Having this perfection of virtue the high-minded man will be only moderately pleased even by great honour from men of repute, as this is no more than his due; while as he rightly despises the common herd he will be altogether indifferent to the honour they pay him. The traits by which Aristotle characterises in detail this flower of noble life are all the more interesting from their discrepancy with the Christian ideal. The high-minded man is likely to be rich and wellborn; he loves to confer favours, but feels shame at receiving them, and does not like to be reminded of any that he may have received; he shuns all subordinate positions, and is inert and dilatory except when there is something great to do; he is open in his enmities and his friendships-for he fears no one-and generally candid, except that he affects irony with the common herd; he is free from malice, no gossip, careless of the little needs and concerns of life, not given to wonder or praise; his walk is slow, his accents grave, his speech deliberate.

After the virtues relating to Honour comes Gentleness, the moral excellence manifested in duly limited resentment ; and the list is concluded by the excellences of social intercourse, Friendliness (as a mean between obsequiousness and surliness), Truthfulness, and Decorous Wit.

There is enough just and close analytical observation

§ II. Aristotle's

account of

contained in this famous account of virtues and vices to give it a permanent interest over and above its historical value: but it does not seem to be based on any serious attempt to consider human conduct exhaustively, and exhibit the patterns of goodness appropriate to the different parts, functions, and relations of life; and the restriction of the sphere of courage to dangers in war, and of that of temperance to certain bodily pleasures, as well as the want of distinction between. selfish and benevolent expenditure in describing liberality. illustrate the fragmentariness and superficiality of treatment to which mere analysis of the common usage of ethical terms is always liable to lead. Nor is Aristotle's general formula for virtue, that it is a mean or middle state, always to be found somewhere between the vices which stand to it in the relation of excess and defect,—of much avail in rendering his treatment really systematic. It was important, no doubt, to express the need of limitation and regulation, of observing due measure and proportion, in order to attain good results in human life no less than in artistic products;1 but Aristotle's quantitative statement of the relation of virtue to vice is misleading, even where it is not obviously inappropriate, and sometimes leads him to such eccentricities as that of making simple veracity a mean between boastfulness and mockmodesty.

The cardinal virtue of Justice or Uprightness (Sikαιoσúvη). omitted from the list above given, was reserved by Aristotle Justice, for separate treatment; partly because he finds the term, as Friendship, commonly used, to have two distinct meanings, blended in Practical Plato's conception of the virtue in the wider meaningwhich I have tried to suggest by "Uprightness"—it is

and

Wisdom.

1 It may be observed that Plato's teaching had already driven this point home.

opposed to all law-breaking (adikía or avoμía), and thus may be taken to stand for the whole of virtue, considered in its social aspect in the narrower meaning, more nearly represented by our "justice," it is specially opposed to grasping or unfair treatment. Of Justice in this narrower sense he distinguishes primarily two species; (1) Distributive Justice, exhibited in the distribution in proportion to Desert1 of any public fund or stock of wealth, honours, or whatever else may have to be divided among the members of a community; and (2) Reparative Justice, realised in the exaction from a wrongdoer, for the benefit of the person wronged, of damages just equivalent to the loss suffered by the latter. He further explains that in the exchanges of commodities which bind society together Justice is attained when the amounts of any two commodities exchanged are in "reciprocal proportion" to their relative values-the superiority in quality on one side being balanced by superiority in quantity on the other. The distinctions are instructive: though they do not guide us in determining what are fair shares, fair damages, fair bargains, in particular cases. Further, taking up the question -much discussed at the outset of moral reflection in Greece-whether Justice is "natural" or "conventional," Aristotle decides that there is properly a mixture of both elements in "civic justice," as realised in the maintenance of the rights legally allotted to the citizens of a constitutional state; since for the complete definition of such rights many details have to be settled which natural justice leaves indeterminate. But he does not attempt to separate clearly the two elements, or to lay down precise principles of

1 66 "Desert " must not be understood to mean "moral worth"; it will, in fact, vary according to circumstances; thus when public money has to be distributed, the Desert of each citizen will depend on the amount of his contribution to the public treasury.

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