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Similarly
we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave
acts. 1.
[5]
This truth is
attested by the experience of states: lawgivers make the citizens good by training them in
habits of right action—this is the aim of all legislation, and if it fails to do
this it is a failure; this is what distinguishes a good form of constitution from a bad
one. 1.
[6]
Again, the actions
from or through which any virtue is produced are the same as those through which it also
is destroyed—just as is the case with skill in the arts, for both the good
harpers and the bad ones are produced by harping, and similarly with builders and all the
other craftsmen: as you will become a good builder from building well, so you will become
a bad one from building badly. 1.
[7]
Were this not so, there would be no need for teachers of the arts, but
everybody would be born a good or bad craftsman as the case might be. The same then is
true of the virtues. It is by taking part in transactions with our fellow-men that some of
us become just and others unjust; by acting in dangerous situations and forming a habit of
fear or of confidence we become courageous or cowardly. And the same holds good of our
dispositions with regard to the appetites, and anger; some men become temperate and
gentle, others profligate and irascible,