can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to
behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature
do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive
them, and are made perfect by habit.

  Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first
acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain
in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often
hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them
before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but
the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the
case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we
can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by
building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by
doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing
brave acts.

  This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make
the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of
every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark,
and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.

  Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every
virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it
is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are
produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of
all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building
well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no
need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at
their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing
the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become
just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of
danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become
brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of
anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others
self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in
the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of
character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities
we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of
character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no
small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of
another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or
rather all the difference.

                                 2

  Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical
knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know
what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our
inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of
actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also
the nature of the states of character that are produced, as we have
said. Now, that we must act according to the right rule is a common
principle and must be assumed-it will be discussed later, i.e. both
what the right rule is, and how it is related to the other virtues.
But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of
matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we
said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in
accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and
questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters
of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of
particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not
fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each
case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also
in the art of medicine or of navigation.

  But though our present account is of this nature we must give what
help we can. First, then, let us consider this, that it is the
nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we
see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things
imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both
excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and
similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount
destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces
and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of
temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies
from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against
anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but
goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who
indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes
self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do,
becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are
destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.

  But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and
growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere
of their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of
the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of strength; it is
produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is
the strong man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it
with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate,
and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from
them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being
habituated to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground
against them we become brave, and it is when we have become so that we
shall be most able to stand our ground against them.

                                 3

  We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain