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    Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (ed. H. Rackham)

    Editions and translations: Greek (ed. J. Bywater) | English (ed. H. Rackham)
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    Book 7

    I. Let us next begin a fresh part of the subject by laying down that the states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds--Vice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality.1 The opposite dispositions in the case of two of the three are obvious: one we call Virtue, the other Self-restraint. As the opposite of Bestiality it will be most suitable to speak of Superhuman Virtue,or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as Homer2 has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor--

    nor seemed to be
    The son of mortal man, but of a god.

    I.[2] Hence if, as men say, surpassing virtue changes men into gods, the disposition opposed to Bestiality will clearly be some quality more than human; for there is no such thing as Virtue in the case of a god, any more than there is Vice or Virtue in the case of a beast: divine goodness is something more exalted than Virtue, and bestial badness is different in kind from Vice. I.[3] And inasmuch as it is rare for a man to be divine, in the sense in which that word is commonly used by the Lacedaemonians as a term of extreme admiration--‘Yon mon's divine,’they say--, so a bestial character is rare among human beings; it is found most frequently among barbarians, and some cases also occur as a result of disease or arrested development. We sometimes also use ‘bestial’ as a term of opprobrium for a surpassing degree of human vice.3

    I.[4] But the nature of the bestial disposition will have to be touched on later; and of Vice we have spoken already. We must however discuss Unrestraint and Softness or Luxury, and also Self-restraint and Endurance.

    1 Or Brutality: the two English words have acquired slightly different shades of meaning, which are combined in the Greek.

    2 Hom. Il. 24.258. The preceding words are, ‘Hector, who was a god.’

    3 Lit. ‘for those who surpass (the rest of) men in Vice’ (i.e., human, not bestial wickedness).

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    This text is based on the following book(s):
    Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
    OCLC: 39541390
    ISBN: 0674990811

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