Book 7
1
Let us next begin a fresh part of the subject by laying down that the states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds—Vice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality.Or Brutality: the two English words have acquired slightly different shades of meaning, which are combined in the Greek. The opposite dispositions in the case of two of the three are obvious: one we call Virtue, the other Self-restraint. As the opposite of Bestiality it will be most suitable to speak of Superhuman Virtue, or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as HomerHom. Il. 24.258. The preceding words are, Hector, who was a god. has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor— nor seemed to be The son of mortal man, but of a god.
2
Hence if, as men say, surpassing virtue changes men into gods, the disposition opposed to Bestiality will clearly be some quality more than human; for there is no such thing as Virtue in the case of a god, any more than there is Vice or Virtue in the case of a beast: divine goodness is something more exalted than Virtue, and bestial badness is different in kind from Vice.
3
And inasmuch as it is rare for a man to be divine, in the sense in which that word is commonly used by the Lacedaemonians as a term of extreme admiration—Yon mon’s divine,they say—, so a bestial character is rare among human beings; it is found most frequently among barbarians, and some cases also occur as a result of disease or arrested development. We sometimes also use bestial as a term of opprobrium for a surpassing degree of human vice.Lit. for those who surpass (the rest of) men in Vice (i.e., human, not bestial wickedness).
4
But the nature of the bestial disposition will have to be touched on later; and of Vice we have spoken already. We must however discuss Unrestraint and Softness or Luxury, and also Self-restraint and Endurance. Neither of these two classes of character is to be conceived as identical with Virtue and Vice, nor yet as different in kind from them.
