Next we must make a fresh start, stating that there are three types of character to be avoided, namely, vice, incontinence, and brutishness. The contraries of two of these are clear; we call one virtue and the other self-control. What is contrary to brutishness might most appropriately be described as superhuman virtue, a virtue heroic and godlike; thus Homer depicts Priam saying of Hector that he was good in the extreme: ‘For he seemed not to be a child of a mortal man but of a god.’

So if, as they say, people become gods through superlative virtue, this must clearly be the sort of state opposed to brutishness. Just as no brute possesses vice or virtue, neither does a god; but the god's state is more honourable than virtue, while that of the brute is in a different class from vice.

And, since it is unusual for a man to be godlike (as the Spartans are wont in their dialect to call someone they particularly admire, saying ‘He is a godlike fellow’), so the brutish person is also uncommon among human beings. He is found chiefly among non-Greeks, though some cases arise through disease and disability. We also use the term derogatorily to refer to those who surpass other human beings in their vice.

But we shall have to make some mention of this kind of disposition later; we have spoken of vice above.