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Nicholas Gordon
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1. Aristotle proposed a simple rule for acting
wisely: moderation in all things except knowledge. He excepted knowledge
because it was the one quality for which he could find no excess. But for
every other quality, he said, there is a deficit and an excess, and wisdom
lies in finding the mean between them.
2. So, for example, courage would be the mean
between cowardice and foolhardiness, humility the mean between arrogance
and self-effacement, frugality the mean between stinginess and profligacy,
and so on.
3. Aristotle did not have a mathematical mean
in mind, but one that varied with each person and circumstance, and so the
rule, though simple in statement, is complex in application.
4. A person who is prone to cowardice, for example,
might have to compensate by aiming higher up the scale in order to achieve
the mean of courage, while one prone to profligacy might have to aim lower
down to achieve frugality. Self-knowledge, therefore, is necessary if one
is to achieve true moderation.
5. Experience is also necessary, since adjustment
towards the mean is a matter of trial and error, acting inappropriately and
learning from one's mistakes.
6. One can also learn from models of moderation,
and from reading and conversation. But only self-knowledge and experience
will bring one to an intuitive sense of moderation, as well as an appreciation
of its wisdom.
7. The rewards of moderation are health, happiness,
and success--all, of course, in moderation.
8. One quality in addition to knowledge that
might be excepted from the rule of the Golden Mean is love of being. For
while the excess of love is obsession, and one can be obsessively religious,
the love of being itself is boundless, informing all other love and providing
the vitality that underlies all strength, all activity, and all
happiness.
Next: The Practice
of Wisdom: The Golden Rule
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Death
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