Hence in
respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence
virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some
have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness,
envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of
these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are
themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is
not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must
always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such
things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the
right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to
go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in
unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should be a mean, an
excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there would be a mean of
excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of
deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of temperance and
courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an extreme, so
too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor any excess
and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong; for in
general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor excess
and deficiency of a mean.
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