fully
acquiesce; something which can be pronounced beautiful, fitting,
honorable, and perfect.

[Footnote 758: "If it be true to say that happiness consists in doing
well, a life of action must be best both for the state and the
individual. But we need not, as some do, suppose that a life of action
implies relation to others, or that those only are active thoughts which
are concerned with the results of action; but far rather we must
consider those speculations and thoughts to be so which have their _end
in themselves_, and which are for their own sake."--"Politics," bk. vii.
ch. iii.]

[Footnote 759: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. x.]

[Footnote 760: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]

From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the Aristotelian
conception of _Virtue_ is not conformity to an absolute and immutable
standard of right. It is defined by him as _the observation of the right
mean (mesotes) in action_--that is, the right mean relatively to
ourselves. "Virtue is a habit deliberately choosing, existing as a mean
(meson) which refers to us, and is defined by reason, and as a prudent
man would define it; and it is a mean between two evils, the one
consisting in excess, the other in defect; and further, it is a mean, in
that one of these falls short of, and the other exceeds, what is right
both in passions and actions; and that virtue both finds and chooses the
mean."[761] The perfection of an action thus consists in its containing
the right degree--the true mean between too much, and too little. The
law of the mesotes is illustrated by the following examples: Man has a
fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean
is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is _fortitude_.
In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and
indifference; this is _temperance_. The true mean between prodigality
and narrowness is _liberality_; between simplicity and cunning is
_prudence_; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is _justice_.
Extending this law to certain qualifications of temper, speech, and
manners, you have the portrait of a graceful Grecian gentleman. Virtue
is thus _proportion, grace, harmony, beauty in action_.

[Footnote 761: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. vi.]

It will at once be seen that this classification has no stable
foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The _mean_ is a
wavering line. It differs under different circumstances and relations,