The fact is that just as there can be no excess or deficiency in temperance or courage because the mean or moderate amount is, in a sense, an extreme, so in these kinds of conduct also there can be no moderation or excess or deficiency, but the acts are wrong however they be done. For, to put it generally, there cannot be moderation in excess or deficiency, nor excess or deficiency in moderation.

But it is not enough to make these general statements [about virtue and vice]: we must go on and apply them to particulars [ i.e. to the several virtues and vices]. For in reasoning about matters of conduct general statements are too vague, 27 and do not convey so much truth as particular propositions. It is with particulars that conduct is concerned: 28 our statements, therefore, when applied to these particulars, should be found to hold good.