In the playful intercourse of society, there is room for the virtue of Wit, a balance or mean between buffoonish excess, and the clownish dulness that can neither make nor enjoy a joke.  Here the man of refinement must be a law to himself (VIII.).

MODESTY [Greek:  aidos] is briefly described, without being put through the comparison with its extremes.  It is more a feeling than a state, or settled habit.  It is the fear of ill-report; and has the physical expression of fear under danger—­the blushing and the pallor.  It befits youth as the age of passion and of errors.  In the old it is no virtue, as they should do nothing to be ashamed of (IX.).

Book Fifth (the first of the so-called Eudemian books), treats of Justice, the Social virtue by pre-eminence.  Justice as a virtue is defined, the state of mind, or moral disposition, to do what is just.  The question then is—­what is the just and the unjust in action?  The words seem to have more senses than one.  The just may be (1) the Lawful, what is established by law; which includes, therefore, all obedience, and all moral virtue (for every kind of conduct came under public regulation, in the legislation of Plato and Aristotle).  Or (2) the just may be restricted to the fair and equitable as regards property.  In both senses, however, justice concerns our behaviour to some one else:  and it thus stands apart from the other virtues, as (essentially and in its first character) seeking another’s good—­not the good of the agent himself (I.).

The first kind of justice, which includes all virtue, called Universal Justice, being set aside, the enquiry is reduced to the Particular Justice, or Justice proper and distinctive.  Of this there are two kinds, Distributive and Corrective (II.).  Distributive Justice is a kind of equality or proportion in the distribution of property, honours, &c., in the State, according to the merits of each citizen; the standard of worth or merit being settled by the constitution, whether democratic, oligarchic, or aristocratic (III.).  Corrective, or Reparative Justice takes no account of persons; but, looking at cases where unjust loss or gain has occurred, aims to restore the balance, by striking an arithmetical mean (IV.).  The Pythagorean idea, that Justice is Retaliation, is inadequate; proportion and other circumstances must be included.  Proportionate Retaliation, or Reciprocity of services,—­as in the case of Commercial Exchange, measured through the instrument of money, with its definite value,—­is set forth as the great bond of society.  Just dealing is the mean between doing injustice and suffering injustice (V.).  Justice is definitely connected with Law, and exists only between citizens of the State, and not between father and children, master and slave, between whom there is no law proper, but only a sort of relation analogous to law (VI.).  Civil Justice is partly Natural, partly conventional.  The natural is what has the same force everywhere,