st degree honourable, for which he must be a good man; honour
being the prize of virtue. He will accept honour only from the good,
and will despise dishonour, knowing it to be undeserved. In all good or
bad fortune, he will behave with moderation; in not highly valuing even
the highest thing of all, honour itself, he may seem to others
supercilious. Wealth and fortune contribute to high-mindedness; but
most of all, superior goodness; for the character cannot exist without
perfect virtue. The high-minded man neither shuns nor courts danger;
nor is he indisposed to risk even his life. He gives favours, but does
not accept them; he is proud to the great, but affable to the lowly. He
attempts only great and important matters; is open in friendship and in
hatred; truthful in conduct, with an ironical reserve. He talks little,
either of himself or of others; neither desiring his own praise, nor
caring to utter blame. He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no
gossip. His movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction stately
(III.).

There is a nameless virtue, a mean between the two extremes of too much
and too little ambition, or desire of honour; the reference being to
smaller matters and to ordinary men. The fact that both extremes are
made terms of reproach, shows that there is a just mean; while each
extreme alternately claims to be the virtue, as against the other,
since there is no term to express the mean (IV.).

MILDNESS [Greek: praotaes] is a mean state with reference to Anger,
although inclining to the defective side. The exact mean, which has no
current name, is that state wherein the agent is free from perturbation
[Greek: atarachos], is not impelled by passion, but guided by reason;
is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he
ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry
on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission.
Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon
appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their
resentment. It is not easy to define the exact mean; each case must be
left to individual perception (V.).

The next virtue is Good-breeding in society, a balance between
surliness on the one hand, and weak assent or interested flattery on
the other. It is a nameless virtue, resembling friendship without the
special affection. Aristotle shows what he considers the bearing of the
finished ge