Nor anarchy nor slavery.

Characteristic of Socrates was his _irony_, or way of understating
himself, in protest against the extravagant professions of the
Sophists. In the reckoning of the Pythagoreans, the Infinite, the
Unlimited, or Unchecked, was marked as evil, in opposition to good,
which was the Limited. From thence, Plato, taking up his parable,
writes: "The goddess of the Limit, my fair Philebus, seeing insolence
and all manner of wickedness breaking loose from all limit in point of
gratification and gluttonous greed, established a law and order of
limited being; and you say this restraint was the death of pleasure; I
say it was the saving of it." Going upon the tradition of his
countrymen, upon their art and philosophy, their poetry, eloquence,
politics, and inmost sentiment, Aristotle formulated the law of moral
virtue, to hold by the _golden mean_, as discerned by the prudent in
view of the present circumstances, between the two extremes of excess
and defect.

6. There is only one object on which man may throw himself without
reserve, his last end, the adequate object of his happiness, God. God
is approached by faith, hope, and charity; but it belongs not to
philosophy to speak of these supernatural virtues. There remains to
the philosopher the natural virtue of religion, which is a part of
justice. Religion has to do with the inward act of veneration and with
its outward expression. To the latter the rule of the mean at once
applies. Moderation in religion is necessary, so far as externals are
concerned. Not that any outward assiduity, pomp, splendour, or
costliness, can be too much in itself, or anything like enough, to
worship God with, but it may be too much for our limited means, which
in this world are drawn on by other calls. But our inward veneration