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But since a mean Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 6. 4-9 (1106 a 24). is capable of various interpretations (for that which is a compound is a mean between the simple uncompounded substances, as grey is of white and black; and that which contains and is contained is a mean between the contained and the container, as eight of twelve and four; and that which partakes of neither of the extremes is a mean, as the indifferent is a mean between good and bad), in none of these ways can virtue be called a mean, for it is not a mixture of the vices, nor, encompassing what falls short of due measure, is it encompassed by that which is in excess of it; nor is it entirely exempt from the impulses of the passions, wherein are found excess and deficiency. But it is a mean, and is said to be so, in a sense very like that which obtains in musical sounds and harmonies. For there the mean or mese, a properly-pitched note cf.Moralia, 1007 e ff., 1014 c, and 451 f, infra. like the neti and the hypatê,The highest and lowest sounds of the heptachord; presumably the mesê is the fourth note of a scale of seven. escapes the sharp highness of the one and the heavy deepness of the other; so virtue, being an activity and faculty concerned with the irrational, does away with the remissions and overstrainings of the impulse and its excesses and defects altogether, and reduces each passion to moderation and faultlessness. So, for instance, they declare courage Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 7. 2-4 (1107 a 33); Stobaeus, Eclogae, ii. 7. 20 (vol. ii. p. 141 ed. Wachsmuth). to be a mean between cowardice and rashness, of which the former is a defect, the latter an excess, of the spirited part of the soul; so, likewise, liberality is a mean between parsimony and prodigality, and gentleness between insensibility and cruelty; and temperance itself and justice are means, the latter distributing to itself in contracts neither more nor less than what is due, the former ever regulating the desires to a mean between lack of feeling and intemperance.
