The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

involve choice. Further, in respect of the
passions we are said to be moved, but in respect of the virtues and
the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a
particular way.
    For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are
neither called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple
capacity of feeling the passions; again, we have the faculties by
nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken
of this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor
faculties, all that remains is that they should be states of
character.
    Thus we have stated what virtue is in respect of its genus.
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6
    We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of
character, but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark,
then, that every virtue or excellence both brings into good
condition the thing of which it is the excellence and makes the
work of that thing be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye
makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence
of the eye that we see well. Similarly the excellence of the horse
makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at
carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy.
Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also
will be the state of character which makes a man good and which
makes him do his own work well.
    How this is to happen we have stated already, but it will be
made plain also by the following consideration of the specific
nature of virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it
is possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either
in terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is
an intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in
the object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the
extremes, which is one and the same for all men; by the
intermediate relatively to us that which is neither too much nor
too little—and this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance,
if ten is many and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in
terms of the object; for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal
amount; this is intermediate according to arithmetical proportion.
But the intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten
pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too
little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds;
for this also is perhaps too much for the person who is to take it,
or too little—too little for Milo, too much for the beginner in
athletic exercises. The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus
a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the
intermediate and chooses this—the intermediate not in the object
but relatively to us.
    If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well—by
looking to the intermediate and judgling its works by this standard
(so that we often say of good works of art that it is not possible
either to take away or to add anything, implying that excess and
defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean
preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in their
work), and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any
art, as nature also is, then virtue must have the quality of aiming
at the intermediate. I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is
concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess,
defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and
confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure
and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both
cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference
to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right
motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and
best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with regard
to actions also there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now
virtue is concerned with passions and actions, in which excess is a
form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is
praised and is a form of success; and being praised and being
successful are both characteristics of virtue. Therefore virtue is
a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at what is
intermediate.
    Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to
the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and
good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in
one way