Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira, in northern Greece, and died in 322 BC. He studied with Plato in Athens, spent time in Assos on the coast of what is now Turkey and on the nearby island of Lesbos, and tutored the boy who would become Alexander the Great. He eventually returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum.

A few minutes reading about Aristotle will take you from logic and politics to the study of animals. Most of what he wrote is lost. About thirty works survive, many of them with the feel of material prepared for teaching.

I want to mention just one of them, the Nicomachean Ethics, and just one idea in it. Aristotle thought we could learn to act well by practicing. He called the right response for the circumstances the mean. Courage, for example, lies between cowardice and rashness. It takes judgment to know what courage calls for this time.

One proposed origin of the English word evil gives it the sense of “overstepping proper limits.” And the Hebrew verb chata, often translated “to sin,” can also mean “to miss.” In Judges, the men who could sling a stone at a hair and never miss are described with that very verb. Aristotle himself says it’s easy to miss the mark and hard to hit it.

I picture an archer. One arrow falls short. The next sails past. Both miss the mark.

Hit the mean.