[15]
Book 7
Ch. 1 [sect. 1] 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 kindsVice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality.430 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,
[20] or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as Homer431 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.
Ch. 1 [sect. 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.
Ch. 1 [sect. 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 admirationYon 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.432
Ch. 1 [sect. 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.
[p. 1145b]
