From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordExcess and deficiency describe opposite failures of due measure; ethical examples use bodily analogies without reducing virtue to physical balance or praising the absence of all feeling.
- In StobaeusVisible cases of exercise, food and drink are offered as assurance about less visible ethical conditions, introducing an explanatory analogy rather than a medical regimen or quantitative moral formula.
- In this editionPreserve both directions of failure and the later qualitative standard; reducing feeling indefinitely is not the same as responding as reason and the practically wise agent would determine.
- A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 3 Read the stated purpose of using evidence of the senses before the examples; it explains why strength and health appear in a discussion about the destruction of virtues.
- English renderings
- excess; deficiency; falling short
Meaning
These nouns describe going beyond or falling short of due measure. The ethical exposition relates them to the destruction of virtue and to the states opposed to its mean.
Use in the book
Too much and too little exercise destroy strength; excess and deficiency in food or drink impair health. The account uses these visible examples to explain the ethical pattern, not to identify virtue with a bodily balance. Courage, gentleness and temperance require appropriate responses rather than simply less feeling. Deficiency can be as blameworthy as excess: never feeling anger or desire is not automatically praised. The quantitative illustration is later qualified by the mean’s ethical quality, determined through reason and the practically wise agent.
The text explains its own use of bodily examples: visible things are meant to give assurance concerning what is not visible. Too much exercise and too little both destroy strength, while due measure preserves it; drink and food supply a parallel. These are analogies supporting an ethical pattern, not a prescription for a particular amount of exercise or diet. The supplied concerning remains marked. Later examples must therefore determine what the relevant excess or deficiency is in conduct, rather than letting a simple arithmetic midpoint answer the moral question.
“wishing to provide assurance drawn from visible things” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 3).
Places to read
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 32Exercise and diet illustrate both directions of failure.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 52Excess and deficiency undermine virtues.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 102The mean is a qualitative standard.
Translation in this edition
Keep the pairs and their varying nouns rather than replacing every deficiency with a generic “vice.”
ἐνδείας
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 3; Wachsmuth II, printed pp. 137-138.
Ταύτας δή φασιν ὑπ’ ἐνδείας καὶ ὑπερβολῆς φθείρεσθαι. Πρὸς δὲ τὴν ἔνδειξιν τούτου τοῖς ἐκ
ὑπερβολῆς
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 3; Wachsmuth II, printed pp. 137-138.
Ταύτας δή φασιν ὑπ’ ἐνδείας καὶ ὑπερβολῆς φθείρεσθαι. Πρὸς δὲ τὴν ἔνδειξιν τούτου τοῖς ἐκ τῶν αἰσθήσεων
ἐλλείψεις
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 20 · Passage 5; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 138.
ἀρετῶν τὰς μὲν οὔσας κατὰ ταύτας ὑπερβολὰς καὶ ἐλλείψεις φθείρειν αὐτάς, τὰς δὲ μετριότητας αὔξειν.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 137–140. Endeia and elleipsis are related in this account but remain distinct printed words.