Virtue, then, has to deal with feelings or passions and with outward acts, in which excess is wrong and deficiency also is blamed, but the mean amount is praised and is right⁠—both of which are characteristics of virtue.

Virtue, then, is a kind of moderation ( μεσότης τις ) 26 inasmuch as it aims at the mean or moderate amount ( τὸ μέσον ).

Again, there are many ways of going wrong (for evil is infinite in nature, to use a Pythagorean figure, while good is finite), but only one way of going right; so that the one is easy and the other hard⁠—easy to miss the mark and hard to hit. On this account also, then, excess and deficiency are characteristic of vice, hitting the mean is characteristic of virtue: