Now we have said generally that he will associate
with people in the right way; but it is by reference to what is
honourable and expedient that he will aim at not giving pain or at
contributing pleasure. For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures
and pains of social life; and wherever it is not honourable, or is
harmful, for him to contribute pleasure, he will refuse, and will
choose rather to give pain; also if his acquiescence in another's
action would bring disgrace, and that in a high degree, or injury,
on that other, while his opposition brings a little pain, he will
not acquiesce but will decline. He will associate differently with
people in high station and with ordinary people, with closer and
more distant acquaintances, and so too with regard to all other
differences, rendering to each class what is befitting, and while
for its own sake he chooses to contribute pleasure, and avoids the
giving of pain, he will be guided by the consequences, if these are
greater, i.e. honour and expediency. For the sake of a great future
pleasure, too, he will inflict small pains.
The man who attains the mean, then, is such as we have described,
but has not received a name; of those who contribute pleasure, the man
who aims at being pleasant with no ulterior object is obsequious,
but the man who does so in order that he may get some advantage in the
direction of money or the things that money buys is a flatterer; while
the man who quarrels with everything is, as has been said, churlish
and contentious.
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