Book 4
1.
Next 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
getting
1 wealth, and especially in giving; wealth meaning all
those things whose value is measured by money.
1.
[
2]
Prodigality and Meanness
2 on
the other hand are both of them modes of excess and of deficiency in relation to wealth.
1.
[
3]
Meanness is always
applied to those who care more than is proper about wealth, but Prodigality is sometimes
used with a wider connotation,
1.
[
4]
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.
1.
[
5]
But this is not the proper application of the word: really it denotes
the possessor of one particular vice,