Hence also most of them are
self-indulgent; for they spend lightly and waste money on their
indulgences, and incline towards pleasures because they do not live
with a view to what is noble.
The prodigal man, then, turns into what we have described if he is
left untutored, but if he is treated with care he will arrive at the
intermediate and right state. But meanness is both incurable (for
old age and every disability is thought to make men mean) and more
innate in men than prodigality; for most men are fonder of getting
money than of giving. It also extends widely, and is multiform,
since there seem to be many kinds of meanness.
For it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in
taking, and is not found complete in all men but is sometimes divided;
some men go to excess in taking, others fall short in giving. Those
who are called by such names as 'miserly', 'close', 'stingy', all fall
short in giving, but do not covet the possessions of others nor wish
to get them. In some this is due to a sort of honesty and avoidance of
what is disgraceful (for some seem, or at least profess, to hoard
their money for this reason, that they may not some day be forced to
do something disgraceful; to this class belong the cheeseparer and
every one of the sort; he is so called from his excess of
unwillingness to give anything); while others again keep their hands
off the property of others from fear, on the ground that it is not
easy, if one takes the property of others oneself, to avoid having
one's own taken by them; they are therefore content neither to take
nor to give.
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