Book 4
1
Next let us speak of Liberality. This virtue seems to be the observance of the mean in relation to wealth: we praise a man as liberal not in war, nor in matters in which we praise him as temperate nor in judicial decisions, but in relation to giving and gettingThe word λαμβάνειν, the antithesis of give, varies in meaning with the context between get, receive and take. wealth, and especially in giving; wealth meaning all those things whose value is measured by money.
2
Prodigality and MeannessSee note on 2.7.4. on the other hand are both of them modes of excess and of deficiency in relation to wealth.
3
Meanness is always applied to those who care more than is proper about wealth, but Prodigality is sometimes used with a wider connotation,
4
since we call the unrestrained and those who squander money on debauchery prodigal; and therefore prodigality is thought to be extremely wicked, because it is a combination of vices.
5
But this is not the proper application of the word: really it denotes the possessor of one particular vice, that of wasting one’s substance; for he who is ruined by his own agency is a hopeless case indeed,ἄσωτος, prodigal, means literally not saved, in desperate case. and to waste one’s substance seems to be in a way to ruin oneself, inasmuch as wealth is the means of life. This then is the sense in which the term Prodigality is here understood.
6
Now riches are an article of use; but articles of use can be used either well or ill, and he who uses a thing best is he who possesses the virtue related to that thing; therefore that man will use riches best who possesses the virtue related to wealth; and this is the liberal man.
