of deep and high, quick and slow; but the limit gives rise to modulation and harmony, and all that is delightful in music. In climate and temperature, where the limit has been introduced, excessive heats and violent storms subside, and the mild and genial seasons in their order follow. In the human mind “the goddess of the limit” checks into submission the wild and wanton passions, and gives rise to all that is good. Thus, in contemplating all things, whether physical or moral, there was present to the mind of Plato the same train of associations,—the same ideas of measure, proportion, balance, harmony, moderation, and the like. Elsewhere (‘Republic,’ p. 400) he dwells especially on the common characteristics of art and morality, pointing out that measure and symmetry are the causes of excellence in both alike. Aristotle took over these thoroughly Greek ideas from Plato, and adapted them to his own purpose. He slightly changed the mode of expression: instead of “moderation” he introduced a mathematical term, “the mean” (for instance, 4 is the mean between 2 and 6); he used this term as the chief feature in a regular formal definition of moral virtue; and he drew out a table of the virtues showing that each of them was a mean between two extremes. Thus the virtue Courage lies between the vice Cowardice, which is fearing too much, and the vice Rashness, which is fearing too little. And virtue generally is a balance between too much and too little. It is produced by the introduction of the law of the mean into the passions, which in themselves are unlimited. But what is this “mean”—this juste milieu
