by Aristotle
Such, then, is the magnificent man; the man who goes to excess and is vulgar [20] exceeds, as has been said, by spending beyond what is right. For on small objects of expenditure he spends much and displays a tasteless showiness; e.g. he gives a club dinner on the scale of a wedding banquet, and when he provides the chorus for a comedy he brings them on to the stage in purple, as they do at Megara. And all such [25] things he will do not for the sake of the noble but to show off his wealth, and because he thinks he is admired for these things, and where he ought to spend much he spends little and where little, much. The niggardly man on the other hand will fall short in everything, and after spending the greatest sums will spoil the beauty of the result for a trifle, and whatever he is doing he will hesitate and consider how he may spend least, and lament even that, and think he is doing everything on a bigger scale [30] than he ought.
These states, then, are vices; yet they do not bring disgrace because they are neither harmful to one’s neighbour nor very unseemly.
3 · Pride seems even from its name to be concerned with great things; what sort of great things, is the first question we must try to answer. It makes no difference whether we consider the state or the man characterized by it. Now the [1123b1] man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no excellent man is foolish or silly. The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud; for [5] pride implies greatness, as beauty implies a good-sized body, and little people may be neat and well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful. On the other hand, he who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is vain; though not every one who thinks himself worthy of more than he really is worthy of is vain. The man who thinks himself worthy of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble, [10] whether his deserts be great or moderate, or his deserts be small but his claims yet smaller. And the man whose deserts are great would seem most unduly humble; for what would he have done if they had been less? The proud man, then, is an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he claims what is in accordance with his merits, while the others go to [15] excess or fall short.
If, then, he deserves and claims great things, and above all the greatest things, he will be concerned with one thing in particular. Desert is relative to external goods; and the greatest of these, we should say, is that which we render to the gods, and which people of position most aim at, and which is the prize appointed for the noblest deeds; and this is honour; that is surely the greatest of external goods. [20] Honours and dishonours, therefore, are the objects with respect to which the proud man is as he should be. And even apart from argument it is with honour that proud men appear to be concerned; for it is honour that they chiefly claim, but in accordance with their deserts. The unduly humble man falls short both in comparison with his own merits and in comparison with the proud man’s claims. [25] The vain man goes to excess in comparison with his own merits, but does not exceed the proud man’s claims.
Now the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the highest degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the best man most. Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And greatness in every excellence would seem to [30] be characteristic of a proud man. And it would be most unbecoming for a proud man to fly from danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or to wrong another; for to what end should he do disgraceful acts, he to whom nothing is great? If we consider him point by point we shall see the utter absurdity of a proud man who is not good.
Nor, again, would he be worthy of honour if he were bad; for honour is the prize of [1124a1] excellence and it is to the good that it is rendered. Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the excellences; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and [5] goodness of character. It is chiefly with honours and dishonours, then, that the proud man is concerned; and at honours that are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately pleased, thinking that he is coming by his own or even less than his own; for there can be no honour that is worthy of perfect excellence, yet he will at any rate accept it since they have nothing greater to bestow on him; but [10] honour from casual people and on trifling grounds he will utterly despise, since it is not this that he deserves, and dishonour too, since in his case it cannot be just. In the first place, then, as has been said, the proud man is concerned with honours; yet he will also bear himself with moderation towards wealth and power and all good or [15] evil fortune, whatever may befall him, and will be neither over-joyed by good fortune nor over-pained by evil. For not even about honour does he care much,31 although it is the greatest thing (for power and wealth are desirable for the sake of honour—at least those who have them wish to get honour by means of them); and for him to whom even honour is a little thing the others must be so too. Hence proud [20] men are thought to be disdainful.
The goods of fortune also are thought to contribute towards pride. For men who are well-born are thought worthy of honour, and so are those who enjoy power or wealth; for they are in a superior position, and everything that has a superiority in something good is held in greater honour. Hence even such things make men prouder; for they are honoured by some for having them; but in truth the good man [25] alone is to be honoured; he, however, who has both advantages is thought the more worthy of honour. But those who without excellence have such goods are neither justified in making great claims nor entitled to the name of ‘proud’; for these things imply perfect excellence. Disdainful and insolent, however, even those who have [1124b1] such goods become. For without excellence it is not easy to bear gracefully the goods of fortune; and, being unable to bear them, and thinking themselves superior to others, they despise others and themselves do what they please. They imitate the proud man without being like him, and this they do where they can; so they do not [5] act excellently, but they do despise others. For the proud man despises justly (since he thinks truly), but the many do so at random.
He does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger, because he honours few things; but he will face great dangers, and when he is in danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there are conditions on which life is not worth having. And he is the sort of man to confer benefits, but he is ashamed of receiving [10] them; for the one is the mark of a superior, the other of an inferior. And he is apt to confer greater benefits in return; for thus the original benefactor besides being paid will incur a debt to him, and will be the gainer by the transaction. They seem also to remember any service they have done, but not those they have received (for he who receives a service is inferior to him who has done it, but the proud man wishes to be superior), and to hear of the former with pleasure, of the latter with displeasure; [15] this, it seems, is why Thetis did not mention to Zeus the services she had done him, and why the Spartans did not recount their services to the Athenians, but those they had received. It is a mark of the proud man also to ask for nothing or scarcely anything, but to give help readily, and to be dignified towards people who enjoy high position and good fortune, but unassuming towards those of the middle class; for it is a difficult and lofty thing to be superior to the former, but easy to be so to [20] the latter, and a lofty bearing over the former is no mark of ill-breeding, but among humble people it is as vulgar as a display of strength against the weak. Again, it is characteristic of the proud man not to aim at the things commonly held in honour, or the things in which others excel; to be sluggish and to hold back except where great honour as a great result is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds, but of great [25] and notable ones. He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to conceal one’s feelings is a mark of timidity), and must care more for truth than for what people will think, and must speak and act openly; for he is free of speech because h
e is contemptuous, and he is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony [30] to the vulgar. He must be unable to make his life revolve round another, unless it be a friend; for this is slavish, and for this reason all flatterers are servile and people [1125a1] lacking in self-respect are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration; for nothing to him is great. Nor is he mindful of wrongs; for it is not the part of a proud man to have a long memory, especially for wrongs, but rather to overlook them. Nor is he a [5] gossip; for he will speak neither about himself nor about another, since he cares not to be praised nor for others to be blamed; nor again is he given to praise; and for the same reason he is not an evil-speaker, even about his enemies, except from haughtiness. With regard to necessary or small matters he is least of all men given to lamentation or the asking of favours; for it is the part of one who takes such [10] matters seriously to behave so with respect to them. He is one who will possess beautiful and profitless things rather than profitable and useful ones; for this is more proper to a character that suffices to itself.
Further, a slow step is thought proper to the proud man, a deep voice, and a level utterance; for the man who takes few things seriously is not likely to be hurried, nor the man who thinks nothing great to be excited, while a shrill voice and [15] a rapid gait are the results of hurry and excitement.
Such, then, is the proud man; the man who falls short of him is unduly humble, and the man who goes beyond him is vain. Now these too are not thought to be bad (for they are not evil-doers), but only mistaken. For the unduly humble man, being worthy of good things, robs himself of what he deserves, and seems to have [20] something bad about him from the fact that he does not think himself worthy of good things, and seems also not to know himself; else he would have desired the things he was worthy of, since these were good. Yet such people are not thought to be fools, but rather unduly retiring. Such an estimate, however, seems actually to make them worse; for each class of people aims at what corresponds to its worth, [25] and these people stand back even from noble actions and undertakings, deeming themselves unworthy, and from external goods no less. Vain people, on the other hand, are fools and ignorant of themselves, and that manifestly; for, not being worthy of them, they attempt honourable undertakings, and then are found out; and [30] they adorn themselves with clothing and outward show and such things, and wish their strokes of good fortune to be made public, and speak about them as if they would be honoured for them. But undue humility is more opposed to pride than vanity is; for it is both commoner and worse.
Pride, then, is concerned with honour on the grand scale, as has been said.
[1125b1] 4 · There seems to be in the sphere of honour also, as was said in our first remarks on the subject, an excellence which would appear to be related to pride as liberality is to magnificence. For neither of these has anything to do with the grand [5] scale, but both dispose us as is right with regard to middling and unimportant objects; as in getting and giving of wealth there is a mean and an excess and defect, so too honour may be desired more than is right, or less, or from the right sources and in the right way. We blame both the ambitious man as aiming at honour more [10] than is right and from wrong sources, and the unambitious man as not choosing to be honoured even for noble reasons. But sometimes we praise the ambitious man as being manly and a lover of what is noble, and the unambitious man as being moderate and temperate as we said in our first treatment of the subject. Evidently, since people are said to be fond of such and such in more than one way, we do not [15] assign the term ‘ambition’32 always to the same thing, but when we praise the quality we think of the man who loves honour more than most people, and when we blame it we think of him who loves it more than is right. The mean being without a name, the extremes seem to dispute for its place as though that were vacant. But where there is excess and defect, there is also an intermediate; now men desire [20] honour both more than they should and less; therefore it is possible also to do so as one should; at all events this is the state that is praised, being an unnamed mean in respect of honour. Relatively to ambition it seems to be unambitiousness, and relatively to unambitiousness it seems to be ambition, while relatively to both it seems in a sense to be both. This appears to be true of the other excellences also. But [25] in this case the extremes seem to be opposed because the mean has not received a name.
5 · Good temper is a mean with respect to anger; the middle state being unnamed, and the extremes almost without a name as well, we place good temper in the middle position, though it inclines towards the deficiency, which is without a [30] name. The excess might be called a sort of irascibility. For the passion is anger, while its causes are many and diverse.
The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised. This will be the good-tempered man, then, since good temper is praised. For the good-tempered man tends to be unperturbed and not to be led by passion, but to be angry in the manner, at the things, and for the length of time, that reason dictates; but he is thought to err rather in the direction of deficiency; for the good-tempered man is [1126a1] not revengeful, but rather tends to forgive.
The deficiency, whether it is a sort of inirascibility or whatever it is, is blamed. For those who are not angry at the things they should be are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right [5] persons; for such a man is thought not to feel things nor to be pained by them, and, since he does not get angry, he is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and to put up with insults to one’s friends is slavish.
The excess can be manifested in all the points (for one can be angry with the wrong persons, at the wrong things, more than is right, too quickly, or too long); yet [10] all are not found in the same person. Indeed they could not; for evil destroys even itself, and if it is complete becomes unbearable. Now hot-tempered people get angry quickly and with the wrong persons and at the wrong things and more than is right, but their anger ceases quickly—which is the best point about them. This [15] happens to them because they do not restrain their anger but retaliate openly owing to their quickness of temper, and then their anger ceases. By reason of excess choleric people are quick-tempered and ready to be angry with everything and on every occasion; whence their name. Sulky people are hard to appease, and retain their anger long; for they repress their passion. But it ceases when they retaliate; for [20] revenge relieves them of their anger, producing in them pleasure instead of pain. If this does not happen they retain their burden; for owing to its not being obvious no one even reasons with them, and to digest one’s anger in oneself takes time.33 Such people are most troublesome to themselves and to their dearest friends. We call [25] bad-tempered those who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right, and longer, and cannot be appeased until they inflict vengeance or punishment.
To good temper we oppose the excess rather than the defect; for not only is it commoner (since revenge is the more human), but bad-tempered people are worse [30] to live with.
What we have said before is plain also from what is said; for it is not easy to define how, with whom, at what, and how long one should be angry, and at what point right action ceases and wrong begins. For the man who strays a little from the [35] path, either towards the more or towards the less, is not blamed; since sometimes we praise those who exhibit the deficiency, and call them good-tempered, and [1126b1] sometimes we call angry people manly, as being capable of ruling. How far, therefore, and how a man must stray before he becomes blameworthy, it is not easy to determine by reason; for the decision depends on the particular facts and on perception. But so much at least is plain, that the middle state is praiseworthy—that [5] in virtue of which we are angry with the right people, at the right things, in the right way, and so on, while the excesses and defects are blameworthy—slightly so if they are present in a low degree, more if in a higher degree, and very much if in a
high degree. Evidently, then, we must cling to the middle state.—Enough of the states relative to anger. [10]
6 · In gatherings of men, in social life and the interchange of words and deeds, some men are thought to be obsequious, viz. those who to give pleasure praise everything and never oppose, but think they should give no pain to the people they [15] meet; while those who, on the contrary, oppose everything and care not a whit about giving pain are called churlish and contentious. That the states we have named are culpable is plain enough, and that the middle state is laudable—that in virtue of which a man will put up with, and will resent, the right things and in the right way; [20] but no name has been assigned to it, though it most resembles friendship. For the man who corresponds to this middle state is very much what, with affection added, we call a good friend. But the state in question differs from friendship in that it implies no passion or affection for one’s associates; since it is not by reason of loving or hating that such a man takes everything in the right way, but by being a man of a [25] certain kind. For he will behave so alike towards those he knows and those he does not know, towards intimates and those who are not so, except that in each of these cases too he will behave as is befitting; for it is not proper to have the same care for intimates and for strangers, nor again to pain them in the same ways. Now we have said generally that he will associate with people in the right way; but it is by reference to what is noble and expedient that he will aim at either34 giving pain or at [30] contributing pleasure. For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures and pains of social life; and wherever it is not noble, or is harmful, for him to contribute pleasure, he will refuse, and will choose rather to give pain; also if his acquiescence in another’s action would bring disgrace, and that in a high degree, or injury, on the [35] agent, while his opposition brings a little pain, he will not acquiesce but will decline. He will associate differently with people in high station and with ordinary people, [1127a1] with closer and more distant acquaintances, and so too with regard to all other differences, rendering to each class what is befitting, and while for its own sake he chooses to contribute pleasure, and avoids the giving of pain, he will be guided by [5] the consequences, if these are greater, i.e. the noble and the expedient. For the sake of a great future pleasure, too, he will inflict small pains.