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Idleness, has been stigmatized as a vice, the parent of all the other vices; while activity, under the name of Industry, has been commended as the nurse of all the virtues.

11. But Benevolence, Wisdom, Courage, Fortitude, Constancy, Hopefulness, and disposition to act, all combined, are yet of no avail to produce actions beneficial to others, without Strength, Capacity, or Ability to act. Mental ability is indeed included and implied in Wisdom. But even bodily strength was reckoned a virtue by the ancients; and all codes of morals enjoin the duty of preserving one's health; a duty which owes its origin in part to the fact, that a certain degree of health is essential to ability bodily or mental, and that a certain degree of bodily and mental ability is essential to action of any kind, and of course to virtuous action. The duty of preserving one's health depends also in part upon the fact, that ill health, by exposing us to the constant influence of certain bodily pains, tends thereby to diminish the force of the sentiment of benevolence.

12. But let it always be borne in mind, that all the preceding qualities, Wisdom, Courage, Fortitude, Constancy, Hopefulness, Activity, and Ability, only attain the character of virtues, by reason of a certain degree of benevolence, which is supposed to be joined with them. When any of these qualities exist, unattended by the ordinary force of the sentiment of Benevolence, they are no longer virtues, but vices. They are then called Craft,* Audacity, In

* Wisdom and Craft were originally used indifferently, to indicate a superior degree of knowledge and sagacity. Wisdom is now re

sensibility, Obstinacy, Credulity, Restlessness, Brute force. These qualities, therefore, in point of fact, are, in their own nature, morally indifferent; and they only come to be considered as morally good or morally bad, that is, to assume the character of Virtues, or Vices, accordingly as, being conjoined with, or dissevered from, the sentiment of benevolence, they operate towards the production of beneficial or injurious actions.

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CHAPTER IV.

DEFINITIONS OF VIRTUE.

1. WE may now be able to understand why all attempts hitherto made to give a definition of Virtue. have failed. Those attempts have proceeded upon the supposition, that what is meant by the word Virtue is a simple, identical thing. Whereas, under that term, in its more general sense, is included all that part of human nature which coöperates in impelling and enabling men to perform actions beneficial to others; first, the pains and pleasures of benevolence; secondly, certain impulses of the pains and pleasures of self-comparison; thirdly, those pains and pleasures of anticipation included under the heads of the fear of punishment and the hope of

stricted to signify knowledge and sagacity employed for good ends, while Craft is employed to designate knowledge and capacity employed for bad ends.

reward; and fourthly, all those temperaments indicated by the epithets Wisdom, Courage, Fortitude, Constancy, Hopefulness, Activity, and Ability.*

2. The term, Virtue, however, is most commonly used in a somewhat more limited sense; including only those impulses - part of them impulses of benevolence, and part impulses of the sentiment of selfcomparison-whereby men are induced to confer benefits upon others, without the expectation of any reward beyond that which arises from the consciousness of having conferred them. This last is the proper moral sense of the word Virtue; and actions having this origin are called Disinterested Actions.

3. The forensic supporters of the disinterested theory of morals, seizing upon the pains and pleasures of benevolence, and totally disregarding all the other sources of beneficial actions, defined virtue to be, Benevolence, or the Love of Man; while the mystical supporters of that theory, looking to a personal deity as the true and exclusive object of the sentiment of benevolence, defined virtue to be, Love of God. Both agree in declaring that Virtue and Disinterestedness are synonymous terms; a proposition generally so interpreted by those who have laid it down, as to make virtue consist in perpetual self-sacrifice; a thing which all men admire, and which a few may attempt; which, as to isolated acts, may be, and constantly is, accomplished; but which, regarded as the sole rule of life, is utterly impracticable.

*In its most general sense, Virtue signifies the power of giving pleasure. Thus we speak of the virtues of minerals and herbs. When applied to man, however, its most general sense is that above stated.

4. The Stoics, directing their attention exclusively to the remarkable influence of the sentiment of selfcomparison, in producing beneficial actions, defined virtue to be Greatness of Mind, superiority to vulgar pains and vulgar pleasures. This definition, like that of the self-sacrificing moralists, made virtue either wholly impracticable, or practicable only for a few.

5. The Epicureans, Hobbists, and those mystic doctors who adopted the selfish theory of morals, wishing to bring Virtue within the reach of the multitude, and perceiving the influence of punishments and rewards in producing beneficial actions, seized upon that as the essence of Virtue, which they declared to consist in the pursuit of our own highest happiness. Descending to particulars, Hobbes maintained that doing right consisted merely in obedience to the civil magistrate. For, according to him, peace, which is the greatest of blessings, and absolutely essential to the happiness and even the existence, of man, can only be secured by entire submission and implicit obedience to existing authority; whence political obedience becomes the great duty of man, including every other. The mystics of this school, as they referred all events to the will of God, held that happiness could only be attained by securing God's favor, and they consequently declared that Virtue consisted not in political but in religious obedience, in fear of God, perfect submission to his commands, and total devotion to his will.*

* The modern sect of Non-resistants, starting with the same adoration of peace, as the great panacea of all evils, which Hobbes enter

The more exigent of the mystic doctors, and those who applied most thoroughly to the Deity the theory of pure selfishness, were soon led to perceive the total impracticability, as men are naturally constituted, of any such perfect obedience on the part of man, as pure selfishness on the part of the Deity would oblige him to require. They taught, in consequence, that to the natural man Virtue is impossible; that by nature men are totally depraved; and that goodness can only be implanted in the heart by a special interposition of divine power, vouchsafed only to an elect few. Thus, again, the partisans of this school closed that broad door which the selfish theory had opened to all men, and, like the Stoics and the partisans of self-sacrifice, again made Virtue possible only to a select few. It is this appeal to the love of superiority, which has tended to secure for all these exclusive theories a certain number of followers, who delight themselves with the idea, that they alone are capable of Virtue, and that all other men are naught.

Helvetius and Bentham, the advocates of interest well understood, and of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, made an ingenious but desperate attempt to amalgamate together the doctrines of pure selfishness and entire self-sacrifice. When pushed

tained, have differed from him in substituting a passive non-resistance in place of that active obedience which he inculcated. In this point they agree with Grotius, whose love of peace made him an advocate for that absolute power by which he himself suffered so much. They differ, too, from Hobbes in this, that, with all the merit which they ascribe to non-resistance, they do not make it the sole virtue; and so far from thinking government the foundation of morals, they denounce all government as wrong.

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