The Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 6; v, 4) that the mean of justice is to be taken according to "arithmetical" proportion, so that it is the real mean.
I answer that, As stated above (09; I-II, 59, 4), the other moral virtues are chiefly concerned with the passions, the regulation of which is gauged entirely by a comparison with the very man who is the subject of those passions, in so far as his anger and desire are vested with their various due circumstances. Hence the mean in such like virtues is measured not by the proportion of one thing to another, but merely by comparison with the virtuous man himself, so that with them the mean is only that which is fixed by reason in our regard. On the other hand, the matter of justice is external operation, in so far as an operation or the thing used in that operation is duly proportionate to another person, wherefore the mean of justice consists in a certain proportion of equality between the external thing and the external person. Now equality is the real mean between greater and less, as stated in Metaph. x [Didot ed., ix, 5; Cf. Ethic. v, 4: wherefore justice observes the real mean.
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