The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

anything else, if he does not
take pains to have it. Yet he will not give to the wrong people nor
at the wrong time, and so on; for he would no longer be acting in
accordance with liberality, and if he spent on these objects he
would have nothing to spend on the right objects. For, as has been
said, he is liberal who spends according to his substance and on
the right objects; and he who exceeds is prodigal. Hence we do not
call despots prodigal; for it is thought not easy for them to give
and spend beyond the amount of their possessions. Liberality, then,
being a mean with regard to giving and taking of wealth, the
liberal man will both give and spend the right amounts and on the
right objects, alike in small things and in great, and that with
pleasure; he will also take the right amounts and from the right
sources. For, the virtue being a mean with regard to both, he will
do both as he ought; since this sort of taking accompanies proper
giving, and that which is not of this sort is contrary to it, and
accordingly the giving and taking that accompany each other are
present together in the same man, while the contrary kinds
evidently are not. But if he happens to spend in a manner contrary
to what is right and noble, he will be pained, but moderately and
as he ought; for it is the mark of virtue both to be pleased and to
be pained at the right objects and in the right way. Further, the
liberal man is easy to deal with in money matters; for he can be
got the better of, since he sets no store by money, and is more
annoyed if he has not spent something that he ought than pained if
he has spent something that he ought not, and does not agree with
the saying of Simonides.
    The prodigal errs in these respects also; for he is neither
pleased nor pained at the right things or in the right way; this
will be more evident as we go on. We have said that prodigality and
meanness are excesses and deficiencies, and in two things, in
giving and in taking; for we include spending under giving. Now
prodigality exceeds in giving and not taking, while meanness falls
short in giving, and exceeds in taking, except in small things.
    The characteristics of prodigality are not often combined; for
it is not easy to give to all if you take from none; private
persons soon exhaust their substance with giving, and it is to
these that the name of prodigals is applied—though a man of this
sort would seem to be in no small degree better than a mean man.
For he is easily cured both by age and by poverty, and thus he may
move towards the middle state. For he has the characteristics of
the liberal man, since he both gives and refrains from taking,
though he does neither of these in the right manner or well.
Therefore if he were brought to do so by habituation or in some
other way, he would be liberal; for he will then give to the right
people, and will not take from the wrong sources. This is why he is
thought to have not a bad character; it is not the mark of a wicked
or ignoble man to go to excess in giving and not taking, but only
of a foolish one. The man who is prodigal in this way is thought
much better than the mean man both for the aforesaid reasons and
because he benefits many while the other benefits no one, not even
himself.
    But most prodigal people, as has been said, also take from the
wrong sources, and are in this respect mean. They become apt to
take because they wish to spend and cannot do this easily; for
their possessions soon run short. Thus they are forced to provide
means from some other source. At the same time, because they care
nothing for honour, they take recklessly and from any source; for
they have an appetite for giving, and they do not mind how or from
what source. Hence also their giving is not liberal; for it is not
noble, nor does it aim at nobility, nor is it done in the right
way; sometimes they make rich those who should be poor, and will
give nothing to people of respectable character, and much to
flatterers or those who provide them with some other pleasure.
Hence also most of them are self-indulgent; for they spend lightly
and waste money on their indulgences, and incline towards pleasures
because they do not live with a view to what is noble.
    The prodigal man, then, turns into what we have described if he
is left untutored, but if he is treated with care he will arrive at
the intermediate and right state. But meanness is both incurable
(for old age and every disability is thought to make men mean) and
more