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The man
who runs away from everything in fear and never endures anything becomes a coward; the man
who fears nothing whatsoever but encounters everything becomes rash. Similarly he that
indulges in every pleasure and refrains from none turns out a profligate, and he that
shuns all pleasure, as boorish persons do, becomes what may be called insensible. Thus
Temperance and Courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency, and preserved by the
observance of the mean.2.
[8]
But1 not
only are the virtues both generated and fostered on the one hand, and destroyed on the
other, from and by the same actions, but they will also find their full exercise in the
same actions. This is clearly the case with the other more visible qualities, such as
bodily strength: for strength is produced by taking much food and undergoing much
exertion, while also it is the strong man who will be able to eat most food and endure
most exertion. 2.
[9]
The same
holds good with the virtues. We become temperate by abstaining from pleasures, and at the
same time we are best able to abstain from pleasures when we have become temperate.
1 We here resume from the end of chap. 1. The preceding paragraphs, repeating from Bk. 1. the caution as to method, and introducing the doctrine of the Mean, which is to be developed below, are parenthetical.