In All Things Of Nature There Is

At First He Who Invented Any Art That Went Beyond The Common Perceptions Of Man Was Naturally Admired By Men, Not Only Because There Was Something Useful In The Inventions, But Because He Was Thought Wise And Superior To The Rest. But As More Arts Were Invented, And Some Were Directed To The Necessities Of Life, Others To Its Recreation, The Inventors Of The Latter Were Always Regarded As Wiser Than The Inventors Of The Former, Because Their Branches Of Knowledge Did Not Aim At Utility.

If Then, As We Say, Good Craftsmen Look To The Mean As They Work, And If Virtue, Like Nature, Is More Accurate And Better Than Any Form Of Art, It Will Follow That Virtue Has The Quality Of Hitting The Mean. I Refer To Moral Virtue [not Intellectual], For This Is Concerned With Emotions And Actions, In Which One Can Have Excess Or Deficiency Or A Due Mean.

Pleasure Causes Us To Do Base Actions And Pain Causes Us To Abstain From Doing Noble Actions.

It Is Not Easy For A Person To Do Any Great Harm When His Tenure Of Office Is Short, Whereas Long Possession Begets Tyranny.

Not Every Action Or Emotion However Admits Of The Observance Of A Due Mean. Indeed The Very Names Of Some Directly Imply Evil, For Instance Malice, Shamelessness, Envy, And, Of Actions, Adultery, Theft, Murder. All These And Similar Actions And Feelings Are Blamed As Being Bad In Themselves; It Is Not The Excess Or Deficiency Of Them That We Blame. It Is Impossible Therefore Ever To Go Right In Regard To Them - One Must Always Be Wrong.