from the fact that it is a regulative principle of universal application; and in this way it may well be taken in the left hand, along with the golden rule in the right {158} hand, “Do unto others as ye would that they would do unto you;” for this sacred sentence is founded on a just, delicate, and broad sympathy, and belongs rather to the emotional element--the moral steam, so to speak--of our nature, which, to avoid great perils, must always be associated with the regulative principle of the mean, or something to that effect. These two famous maxims indeed may, for practical purposes, be regarded as complementary of each other. For persons in whom the sympathetic emotions predominate are often deficient in the regulative faculty; while those whose power of regulation is great have sometimes little to regulate, and like a great commander with few soldiers, make a very poor appearance in the battle-field. In the struggle of life, the man whose sympathetic unselfish impulses are strong will perhaps find more benefit from the constant reference to Aristotle’s mean than even to the Scriptural golden rule; while the well-tempered Aristotelian will, on the other hand, find it for his advantage to inquire whether the even pace at which he goes is not as much owing to the dullness of the charger’s blood as to the skill with which the rider wields the rein. For there is no single maxim in morals that will conduct a man through all practical difficulties without the consideration of some other maxim qualifying it, and perhaps, for the nonce, giving it a flat contradiction; as I have known a gentleman who confessed to me that by nothing had he been led into so many serious blunders as by the indiscriminate application of this very text, “Do unto others,” etc.; for, being a man of a peculiar idiosyncrasy, and not having learned that the golden rule applies only to that which we {159} hold in common with our fellow-men, and not to those points on which we differ, he was constantly led into a course of behaviour towards certain persons, meant by him as a great kindness, but taken as a serious offence. While he wished not to be troublesome, he was considered to be neglectful; while he abstained from mentioning certain subjects for fear of rousing painful feelings he was accused of coldness and indifference; while he meant to be frank and confiding, he was met with a rebuff that he was rude and impertinent. All this shows how little mere preaching and parading of general maxims has to do with the difficult task of the formation of character; and no writer deserves greater praise for having gravely enunciated this truth than the author of the Nicomachean Ethics. In order fully to realize the value of the Aristotelian mean in the conduct of life, we may follow the method of the great moralist himself, and cull a few examples at random for its verification. We shall take three virtues--courage, truthfulness, self-esteem--and see