1119bNext let us speak of Liberality. This virtue seems to be the observance of the mean in relation to wealth: we praise a man as liberal not in war, nor in matters in which we praise him as temperate nor in judicial decisions, but in relation to giving and getting¹ wealth, and especially in giving; wealth meaning all those things whose value is measured by money. Prodigality and Meanness² on the other hand are both of them modes of excess and of deficiency in relation to wealth. Meanness is always applied to those who care more than is proper about wealth, but Prodigality is sometimes used with a wider connotation, since we call the unrestrained and those who squander money on debauchery prodigal; and therefore prodigality is thought to be extremely wicked, because it is a combination of vices. But this is not the proper application of the word: really it denotes the possessor of one particular vice, 1120athat of wasting one’s substance; for he who is ruined by his own agency is a hopeless case indeed,³ and to waste one’s substance seems to be in a way to ruin oneself, inasmuch as wealth is the means of life. This then is the sense in which the term Prodigality is here understood. Now riches are an article of use; but articles of use can be used either well or ill, and he who uses a thing best is he who possesses the virtue related to that thing; therefore that man will use riches best who possesses the virtue related to wealth; and this is the liberal man. But the use of wealth seems to consist in spending and in giving; getting wealth and keeping it are modes of acquisition rather than of use. Hence the liberal man is more concerned with giving to the right recipients than with getting wealth from the right sources and not getting it from the wrong ones. Virtue is displayed in doing good rather than in having good done to one, and in performing noble acts rather than in avoiding base ones; but manifestly doing good and acting nobly go with giving, while having good done to one and avoiding base actions go with getting. Again, gratitude is bestowed on a giver, not on one who refrains from taking; and still more is this true of praise. Also it is easier not to take than to give: men are more reluctant to give away what belongs to them than to refrain from taking what belongs to someone else. Again, it is those who give whom we call liberal; those who refrain from taking⁴ are not praised for Liberality but rather for Justice, and those who take⁵ are not praised at all. And of all virtuous people the liberal are perhaps the most beloved, because they are beneficial to others; and they are so in that they give. Acts of virtue are noble, and are performed for the sake of their nobility; the liberal man therefore will give for the nobility of giving. And he will give rightly, for he will give to the right people, and the right amount, and at the right time, and fulfil all the other conditions of right giving. Also he will give with pleasure, or at all events without pain; for virtuous action is pleasant, or painless—it certainly cannot be painful. One who gives to the wrong people,⁶ or not for the nobility of giving but from some other motive, will not be called liberal, but by some different title; nor will he who gives with pain, for he would prefer the money to the noble deed, which is not the mark of a liberal man. Consequently the liberal man will not take money from a wrong source either, since one who holds wealth in low esteem is not the man to make improper gains. Nor yet will he be fond of asking favors, for one who confers benefits does not readily accept them. But he will acquire wealth from the proper source, 1120bthat is, from his own possessions, not because he thinks it is a noble thing to do, but because it is a necessary condition of having the means to give. He will not be careless of his property, inasmuch as he wishes to employ it for the assistance of others. He will not give indiscriminately, in order that he may be able to give to the right persons and at the right time, and where it is noble to do so. But the liberal man is certainly prone to go to excess in giving, so as to leave himself the smaller share; for it is a mark of a liberal nature to be regardless of self. In crediting people with Liberality their resources must be taken into account; for the liberality of a gift does not depend on its amount, but on the disposition of the giver, and a liberal disposition gives according to its substance.⁷ It is therefore possible that the smaller giver may be the more liberal, if he give from smaller means. Men who have inherited a fortune are reputed to be more liberal than those who have made one, since they have never known what it is to want; moreover everybody is specially fond of a thing that is his own creation: parents and poets show this. But it is not easy for a liberal man to be rich, since he is not good either at getting money or at keeping it, while he is profuse in spending it and values wealth not for its own sake but as a means of giving. Hence people blame fortune because the most deserving men are the least wealthy. But this is really perfectly natural: you cannot have money, any more than anything else, without taking pains to have it. On the other hand, the liberal man will not give to the wrong people, nor at the wrong time, and so forth, for this would not be an act of Liberality at all; and if he spent his money on the wrong objects he would not have any to spend on the right ones. In fact, as was said before, the liberal man is one who spends in proportion to his means as well as on the right objects; while he that exceeds his means is prodigal. This is why we do not call the lavishness of princes Prodigality; because we feel that however much they spend and give away they can hardly exceed the limit of their resources. Liberality then being the observance of the mean in the giving and getting of wealth, the liberal man will not only give and spend the right amounts on the right objects alike in small matters and in great, and feel pleasure in so doing, but will also take the right amounts, and from the right sources. For as this virtue is a mean both in giving and in getting, he will do both in the right way. Right getting goes with right giving, wrong getting is opposed to right giving; the two concordant practices therefore may be found in the same person, but the two opposite ones clearly cannot be. 1121aIf the liberal man should happen to spend in a manner contrary to what is right and noble, he will feel pain, though in a moderate degree and in the right manner; for it is a mark of virtue to feel both pleasure and pain on the right occasions and in the right manner. Also the liberal man is an easy person to deal with in money matters; he can be cheated, because he does not value money, and is more distressed if he has paid less than he ought than he is annoyed if he has paid more: he does not agree with the saying of Simonides.⁸ The prodigal on the other hand errs in his feelings with regard to money as well as in his actions; he feels neither pleasure nor pain on the right occasions nor in the right manner. This will become clearer as we proceed. We have said⁹ then that Prodigality and Meanness are modes of excess and of deficiency, and this in two things, giving and getting—giving being taken to include spending. Prodigality exceeds in giving [without getting¹⁰], and is deficient in getting; Meanness falls short in giving and goes to excess in getting, only not on the great scale. Now the two forms of Prodigality are very seldom found united in the same person, because it is not easy to give to everyone without receiving from anyone: the giver’s means are soon exhausted, if he is a private citizen, and only such persons are considered prodigal.¹¹ In fact, a man who is prodigal in both ways may be thought considerably superior to the mean man; for he is easily cured by age or by poverty, and is able to be brought to the due mean, because he possesses the essentials of the liberal character—he gives, and he refrains from taking, though he does neither in the proper way or rightly. Correct this by training, or otherwise reform him, and he will be liberal, for he will now give his money to the right objects, while he will not get it from the wrong sources. This is why he is felt to be not really bad in character; for to exceed in giving without getting is foolish rather than evil or ignoble. The prodigal of this type therefore seems to be much superior to the mean man, both for the reasons stated, and because the former benefits many people, but the latter benefits nobody, not even himself. But the majority of prodigal people, as has been said, besides giving wrongly, take from wrong sources; in respect of getting they are in fact mean. And what makes them grasping is that they want to spend, but cannot do so freely because they soon come to the end of their resources, and so are compelled to obtain supplies from others. 1121bMoreover, being indifferent to nobility of conduct, they are careless how they get their money, and take it from anywhere; their desire is to give, and they do not mind how or where they get the means of giving. Hence even their giving is not really liberal: their gifts are not noble, nor given for the nobility of giving, nor in the right way; on the contrary, sometimes they make men rich who ought to be poor, and will not give anything to the worthy, while heaping gifts on flatterers and others who minister to their pleasures. Hence most prodigal men are also profligate; for as they spend their money freely, some of it is squandered in debauchery; and having no high moral standard they readily yield to the temptation of pleasure. This then is what the prodigal comes to if he is not brought under discipline; but if he is taken in hand, he may attain the due mean and the right scale of liberality. Meanness on the contrary is incurable; for we see that it can be caused by old age or any form of weakness. Also it is more ingrained in man’s nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed. Moreover Meanness is a far-reaching vice, and one of varied aspect: it appears to take several shapes. For as it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in getting, it is not found in its entirety in every case, but sometimes the two forms occur separately, some men going too far in getting, while others fall short in giving. The characters described by such names as niggardly, close-fisted, and stingy all fall short in giving, but they do not covet the goods of others nor wish to take them. With some of them this is due to an honorable motive of a sort, namely a shrinking from base conduct—since some persons are thought, or at all events profess, to be careful of their money because they wish to avoid being forced at some time or other to do something base; to this class belong the skinflint¹² and similar characters, who get their names from an excessive reluctance to give. But some keep their hands off their neighbors’ goods from fear; they calculate that it is not easy to take what belongs to others without others taking what belongs to oneself, and so they “prefer (as they say) neither to take nor to give.” The other sort of people are those who exceed in respect of getting, taking from every source and all they can; such are those who follow degrading trades, brothel-keepers and all people of that sort, and petty usurers who lend money in small sums at a high rate of interest; 1122aall these take from wrong sources, and more than their due. The common characteristic of all these seems to be sordid greed, since they all endure reproach for gain, and for a small gain. Those who make improper gains from improper sources on a great scale, for instance princes who sack cities and rob temples, are not termed mean, but rather wicked or impious or unjust. But the dicer and the foot-pad or brigand are to be classed as mean, as showing sordid greed, for both ply their trade and endure reproach for gain, the robber risking his life for plunder, and the dicer making gain out of his friends, to whom one ought to give; hence both are guilty of sordid greed, trying as they do to get gain from wrong sources. And all similar modes of getting wealth are mean for the same reasons. Meanness is naturally spoken of as the opposite of Liberality; for not only is it a greater evil than Prodigality, but also men more often err on the side of Meanness than on that of Prodigality as we defined it.¹³ Let this suffice as an account of Liberality and of the vices which are opposed to it.