And for this reason their givings are not Liberal, inasmuch as they are not honourable, nor purely disinterested, nor done in right fashion; but they oftentimes make those rich who should be poor, and to those who are quiet respectable kind of people they will give nothing, but to flatterers, or those who subserve their pleasures in any way, they will give much. And therefore most of them are utterly devoid of self-restraint; for as they are open-handed they are liberal in expenditure upon the unrestrained gratification of their passions, and turn off to their pleasures because they do not live with reference to what is honourable.
Thus then the Prodigal, if unguided, slides into these faults; but if he could get care bestowed on him he might come to the mean and to what is right.
Stinginess, on the contrary, is incurable: old age, for instance, and incapacity of any kind, is thought to make people Stingy; and it is more congenial to human nature than Prodigality, the mass of men being fond of money rather than apt to give: moreover it extends far and has many phases, the modes of stinginess being thought to be many. For as it consists of two things, defect of giving and excess of receiving, everybody does not have it entire, but it is sometimes divided, and one class of persons exceed in receiving, the other are deficient in giving. I mean those who are designated by such appellations as sparing, close-fisted, niggards, are all deficient in giving; but other men's property they neither desire nor are willing to receive, in some instances from a real moderation and shrinking from what is base.
There are some people whose motive, either supposed or alleged, for keeping their property is this, that they may never be driven to do anything dishonourable: to this class belongs the skinflint, and every one of similar character, so named from the excess of not-giving. Others again decline to receive their neighbour's goods from a motive of fear; their notion being that it is not easy to take other people's