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Therefore, also, ethical, or moral, virtue (ethos) is well named, cf.Moralia, 3 a, 551 e; Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 1. 1 (1103 a 17). for ethical virtue is, to but sketch the subject, a quality of the irrational, and it is so named because the irrational, being formed by reason, acquires this quality and differentiation by habit (ethos), since reason does not wish to eradicate passion completely (for that would be neither possible Cf. 452 b, infra. nor expedient), but puts upon it some limitation and order and implants the ethical virtues, which are not the absence of passion but a due proportion and measure therein; and reason implants them by using prudence to develop the capacity for passion into a good acquired disposition. For these three things the soul is said to possess Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 5 (1105 b 19); Stobaeus, Eclogae, ii. 7. 20 (vol. ii. p. 139 ed. Wachsmuth).: capacity, passion, acquired state. Now capacity The capacities are the faculties in virtue of which we can be said to be liable to the emotions, for example, capable of feeling anger or fear [mss. read pain] or pity. (Aristotle, l.c., Rackham’s translation adapted.) is the starting-point, or raw material, of passion, as, for instance, irascibility, bashfulness, temerity. And passion is a kind of stirring or movement of the capacity, as anger, shame, boldness. And finally, the acquired state is a settled force and condition of the capacity of the irrational, this settled condition being bred by habit and becoming on the one hand vice, if the passion has been educated badly, but virtue, if educated excellently by reason.
