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called Paltriness. These are not the same as Liberality and the
vices corresponding to it; but the way in which they differ will be discussed
later.
[7]
In respect of honor and dishonor, the observance of the mean is Greatness of Soul, the
excess a sort of Vanity, as it may be called, and the deficiency, Smallness of Soul.
[8]
And just as we said that Liberality is related to
Magnificence, differing from it in being concerned with small amounts of money, so there
is a certain quality related to Greatness of Soul, which is concerned with great honors,
while this quality itself is concerned with small honors; for it is possible to aspire to
minor honors in the right way, or more than is right, or less. He who exceeds in these
aspirations is called ambitious, he who is deficient, unambitious; but the middle
character has no name, and the dispositions of these persons are also unnamed, except that
that of the ambitious man is called Ambitiousness. Consequently the extreme characters put
in a claim to the middle position, and in fact we ourselves sometimes call the middle
person ambitious and sometimes unambitious:
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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