This provision may, in some cases, be made by voluntary enlistment; but in most civilized countries, it has been found necessary to fill and recruit the army by conscription, thus forcibly endangering the lives of a portion of the citizens, in order to avert from the soil and the homes of the people at large the worse calamities of invasion, devastation, and conquest. So far as this is necessary, it is undoubtedly right, and the lives thus sacrificed are justly due to the safety and well-being of the whole people. But in making this admission, we would say, without abatement or qualification, that war is essentially inhuman, barbarous, and opposed to and by the principles and spirit of Christianity, and that should the world ever be thoroughly Christianized, the ages when war was possible, will be looked back upon with the same horror with which we now regard cannibalism.
a.s.sociated with the right to life, and essential to its full enjoyment, is the *right to liberty*. This includes the right to direct one"s own employments and recreations, to divide and use his time as may seem to him good, to go where he pleases, to bestow his vote or his influence in public affairs as he thinks best, and to express his own opinions orally, in writing, or through the press, without hindrance or molestation. These several rights belong equally to all; but as they cannot be exercised in full without mutual interference and annoyance, the common sense of mankind, uttering itself through law, permits each individual to enjoy them only so far as he can consistently with the freedom, comfort, and well-being of his fellow-citizens.
*Slavery* is so nearly extirpated from Christendom, that it is superfluous to enter into the controversy, which a few years ago no treatise on Moral Philosophy could have evaded. It was defended only by patent sophistry, and its advocates argued from the fact to the right, inventing the latter to sustain the former.
*Personal liberty is legally and rightfully restricted* in the case of minors, on the ground of their *immature* judgment and discretion, of their natural state of dependence on parents, and of their usual abode under the parental roof. The age of mature discretion varies very widely, not only in different races, but among different individuals of the same race, as does also the period of emanc.i.p.ation from the controlling influence of parents, and of an independent and self-sustaining condition in life. But, as it is impossible for government to inst.i.tute special inquiries in the case of each individual, and as, were this possible, there would be indefinite room for favoritism and invidious distinctions, there is an intrinsic fitness in fixing an average age at which parental or _quasi_-parental tutelage shall cease, and after which the man shall have full and sole responsibility for his own acts. It is perfectly obvious that the liberty of the insane and feeble-minded ought to be restricted so far as is necessary for their own safety and for that of others. There is, also, in most communities, a provision by which notorious spendthrifts may be put under guardianship, and thus restrained in what might be claimed as their rightful disposal of their own property.
This may be justified on the ground that, by persistent wastefulness, they may throw upon the public the charge of their own support and that of their families.
*Imprisonment* is, on the part of society, a measure, not of revenge, but of self-defence. The design of this mode of punishment is, first, to prevent the speedy repet.i.tion of the crime on the part of the person punished; secondly, so to work, either upon his moral nature by confinement, labor, and instruction, or at the worst, on his fears, by the dread of repeated and longer restraint, that he may abstain from crime in future; and lastly, to deter those who might otherwise be tempted to crime from exposing themselves to its penal consequences. As regards the prisoner, he has justly forfeited the right to liberty by employing it in aggression on the rights of others.
As regards acts not in themselves wrong, the freedom of the individual is rightfully restrained, when it would interfere with the health, comfort, or lawful pursuits of his neighbors. Thus no man has the right, either legal or moral, to establish, in an inhabited vicinage, a trade or manufacture which confessedly poisons the air or the water in his neighborhood; nor has one a moral right (even if there are technical difficulties in the way of declaring his calling a nuisance), to annoy his neighbors by an avocation grossly offensive or intolerably noisy. It is on this ground alone that legislation with reference to the Lord"s day can be justified. Christians have no right to impose upon Jews, Pagans, or infidels, entire cessation of labor, business, or recreation on Sunday, and the attempt at coercive measures of this kind can only react to the damage of the cause in which they are inst.i.tuted. But if the majority of the people believe it their duty to observe the first day of the week as a day of rest and devotion, they have a right to be protected in its observance by the suppression of such kinds, degrees, and displays of labor and recreation as would essentially interfere with their employment of the day for its sacred uses.
2. *The right to property* is an inevitable corollary from the right to liberty; for this implies freedom to labor at one"s will, and to what purpose can a man labor, unless he can make the fruit of his labor his own? All property, except land, has been created by labor. Except where slavery is legalized, it is admitted that the laborer owns the value he creates. If it be an article made or produced wholly by himself, it is his to keep, to use, to give, or to sell. If his labor be bestowed on materials not his own, or if he be one of a body of workmen, he is ent.i.tled to a fair equivalent for the labor he contributes.
*Property in land*, no doubt, originated in labor. A man was deemed the proprietor of so much ground as he tilled. In a spa.r.s.e population there could have been no danger of mutual interference; and in every country, governments must have been inst.i.tuted before there was a sufficiently close occupation of the soil to occasion collisions and conflicts among the occupants. The governments of the early ages, in general, confirmed the t.i.tles founded in productive occupancy, and treated the unoccupied land as the property of the state, either to be held in common, to be ceded to individual owners in reward of loyalty or services, or to be sold on the public account.
It is manifest that the *security of property is essential to civilization and progress*. Men would labor only for the needs of the day, if they could not retain and enjoy the fruits of their labor; nor would they be at pains to invent or actualize industrial improvements of any kind, if they had no permanent interest in the results of such improvements. Then, too, if there were no protection for property, there could be no acc.u.mulation of capital, and without capital there could be no enterprise, no combined industries, no expenditure in faith of a remote, yet certain profit. Nor yet can the ends of a progressive civilization be answered by a community of goods and gains. Wherever this experiment has been tried, it has been attended by a decline of industrial energy and capacity; and where there has not been absolute failure, there have been apathy, stupidity, and a decreasing standard of intelligence. In fine, there is in man"s bodily and mental powers a certain _vis inertiae_, which can be efficiently aroused only by the stimulus of personal interest in the results of industry, ingenuity, and prudence.
The right of property implies *the right of the owner, while he lives*, to hold, enjoy, or dispose of his possessions in such way as may please him.
But his ownership necessarily ceases at death; and what was his becomes *rightfully the property of the public*. Yet in all civilized countries, it has been deemed fitting that the owner should have the liberty-with certain restrictions-of dictating the disposal of his property after his death, and also that, unless alienated by his will (and in some countries his will notwithstanding), his property should pa.s.s to his family or his nearest kindred. It is believed that it would discourage industry and enfeeble enterprise were their earnings to be treated as public property on the death of the owner; and that, on the other hand, men are most surely trained to and preserved in habits of diligence and thrift, either by the power of directing the disposal of their property after death, or by the certainty that they can thereby benefit those whom they hold in the dearest regard. Laws with reference to wills and to the succession of estates are not, then, limitations of the rights of private property, but a directory as to what is deemed the best mode of disposing of such property as from time to time accrues to the public.
*The law limits the right of property* by appropriating to public uses such portions of it as are needed for the maintenance, convenience, and well-being of the body politic. This is done, in the first place, by taxation, which-in order to be just-must be equitable in its mode of a.s.sessment, and not excessive in amount. As to the modes of a.s.sessment, it is obvious that a system which lightens the burden upon the rich, and thus presses the more heavily on the poor (as would be the case were a revenue raised on the necessaries of life, while luxuries were left free), cannot be justified. On the other hand, it may be maintained that the rate of taxation might fairly increase with the amount of property; for a very large proportion of the machinery of government is designed for the protection of property, and the more property an individual has, the less capable is he of protecting his various interests by his own personal care, and the more is he in need of well-devised and faithfully executed laws. Taxation excessive in amount is simply legalized theft. Sinecures, supernumerary offices, needless and costly formalities in the transaction of public business, journeys and festivities at the public charge, buildings designed for ostentation rather than for use, have been so long tolerated in the munic.i.p.al, state, and national administrations, that they may seem inseparable from our system of government; but they imply gross dishonesty on the part of large numbers of our public servants, and guilty complicity in it on the part of many more. Under a system of direct taxation, a.s.sessments can be more equitably made, and their expenditure will be more carefully watched, than in the case of indirect taxation; while the latter method is more likely to find favor with those who hold or seek public office, as encouraging a larger freedom of expenditure, and supporting a larger number of needless functionaries at the public cost.
The law, also, authorizes *the appropriation of specific portions of property to public uses*, as for streets, roads, aqueducts, and public grounds, and even in aid of private enterprises in which the community has a beneficial interest, as of ca.n.a.ls, bridges, and railways. This is necessary, and therefore right. It is obvious that, but for this, the most essential facilities and improvements might be prevented, or burdened with unreasonable costs, by the obstinacy or cupidity of individuals. The conditions under which such use of private property is justified are, that the improvement proposed be for the general good, that a fair compensation be given for the property taken, and that as to both these points, in case of a difference of opinion, the ultimate appeal shall be to an impartial tribunal or arbitration.
3. *The right to reputation.* Every man has a right to the reputation he deserves, and is under obligation to respect that right in every other man. This obligation is violated, not only by the fabrication of slander, but equally by its repet.i.tion, unless the person who repeats it knows it to be true, and also by silence and seeming acquiescence in an injurious report, if one knows or believes it to be false. But has a man a right to a better reputation than he deserves? Certainly not, in a moral point of view; and if men could be generally known to be what they are, few would fail to become what they would wish to seem. Yet the law admits the truth of a slanderous charge in justification of the slanderer, only when it can be shown that the knowledge of the truth is for the public benefit. There are good reasons for this att.i.tude of the law, without reference to any supposed rights of the justly accused party. There is, in many instances, room for a reasonable doubt as to evil reports that seem authentic, and in many more instances there may be extenuating circ.u.mstances which form a part of the case, though almost never, of the report. Then, too, the family and kindred of the person defamed may incur, through true, yet useless reports to his discredit, shame, annoyance, and damage, which they do not merit. Evil reports, also, even if true, disturb the peace of the community, and often provoke violent retaliation. The wanton circulation of them, therefore, if a luxury to him who gives them currency, is a luxury indulged at the expense of the public, and he ought to be held liable for all that it may cost. Finally, and above all, the slanderer becomes a nuisance to the community, not only by his reports of real or imagined wrong and evil, but by the degradation of his own character, which can hardly remain above the level of his social intercourse.
By the law, defamation and libel are, very justly, liable both to *criminal prosecution*, as offences against the public, and to *action for damages* by civil process, on the obvious ground that the injury of a man"s character tends to impair his success in business, his pecuniary credit, and his comfortable enjoyment of his property.
Chapter VII.
MOTIVE, Pa.s.sION, AND HABIT.
The appet.i.tes, desires, and affections are, as has been said, the *proximate motives* of action. The perception of expediency and the sense of right act, not independently of these motives, but upon them and through them, checking some, stimulating others. Thus they, both, restrain the appet.i.tes, the former, so far as prudence requires; the latter, in subserviency to the more n.o.ble elements of character. The former directs the desires toward worthy, but earthly objects; the latter works most efficiently through the benevolent affections, as exercised toward G.o.d and man.
Exterior motives are of a secondary order, acting not directly upon the will, but influencing it indirectly, through the springs of action, or through the principles which direct and govern them.
*The action of exterior motives* takes place in three different ways. 1.
When they are in harmony with any predominant appet.i.te, desire, or affection, they at once intensify it, and prompt acts by which it may be gratified. Thus, for instance, a sumptuously spread table gives the epicure a keener appet.i.te, and invites him to its free indulgence. The opportunity of a potentially lucrative, though hazardous investment, excites the cupidity of the man who prizes money above all things else, and tempts him to incur the doubtful risk. The presence of the object of love or hatred adds strength to the affection, and induces expressions or acts of kindness or malevolence. 2. An exterior motive opposed to the predominant spring of action often starts that spring into vigorous and decisive activity, and makes it thenceforth stronger and more imperative.
It is thus that remonstrances, obstacles, and interposing difficulties not infrequently render sensual pa.s.sion more rabid; while temptation, by the acts of resistance which it elicits, nourishes the virtue it a.s.sails. 3.
An exterior motive may have a sufficient stress and cogency to call forth into energetic action some appet.i.te, desire, or affection previously dormant or feeble, thus to repress the activity of those which before held sway, and so to produce a fundamental change in the character. In this way the sudden presentation of vice, in attractive forms, may give paramount sway to pa.s.sions which had previously shown no signs of mastery; and, in like manner, a signal experience of peril, calamity, deliverance, or unexpected joy may call forth the religious affections, and invest them with enduring supremacy over a soul previously surrendered to appet.i.te, inferior desires, or meaner loves.
*An undue influence* in the formation or change of character *is often ascribed to exterior motives.* They are oftener the consequence than the cause of character. Men, in general, exercise more power over their surroundings, than their surroundings over them. A very large proportion of the circ.u.mstances which seem to have a decisive influence upon us, are of our own choice, and we might-had we so willed-have chosen their opposites. A virtuous person seldom finds it necessary to breathe a vicious atmosphere. A willingness to be tempted is commonly the antecedent condition to one"s being led into temptation. Sympathy, example, and social influences are second in their power, whether for good or for evil, to no other cla.s.s of exterior motives; and there are few who cannot choose their own society, and who do not choose it in accordance with their elective affinities. It is true, indeed, that the choice of companions of doubtful virtue is often the first outward sign of vicious proclivities; while a tenacious adherence to the society of the most worthy not infrequently precedes any very conspicuous development of personal excellence; but in either case the choice of friends indicates the predominant springs of action, and the direction in which the character has begun to grow. So far then is man from being under the irresistible control of motives from without, that these motives are in great part the results and the tokens of his own voluntary agency.
Christianity justly claims preeminence, not only as a source of knowledge as to the right, but equally as presenting the most influential and persistent motives to right conduct. These motives we have in its endearing and winning manifestation of the Divine fatherhood by Jesus Christ; in his own sacrifice, death, and undying love for man; in the a.s.surance of forgiveness for past wrongs and omissions, without which there could be little courage for future well-doing; in the promise of Divine aid in every right purpose and worthy endeavor; in the certainty of a righteous retribution in the life to come; and in inst.i.tutions and observances designed and adapted to perpetuate the memory of the salient facts, and to *renew* at frequent intervals the recognition of the essential truths, which give the religion its name and character. The desires and affections, stimulated and directed by these motives, are incapable of being perverted to evil, while desires with lower aims and affections for inferior objects are always liable to be thus perverted.
These religious motives, too, resting on the Infinite and the Eternal, are of inexhaustible power; if felt at all, they must of necessity be felt more strongly than all other motives; and they cannot fail to be adequate to any stress of need, temptation, or trial.
*Pa.s.sion* implies a _pa.s.sive_ state,-a condition in which the will yields without resistance to some dominant appet.i.te, desire, or affection, under whose imperious reign reason is silenced, considerations of expediency and of right suppressed, and exterior counteracting motives neutralized. It resembles insanity in the degree in which the actions induced by it are the results of unreasoning impulse, and in the unreal and distorted views which it presents of persons, objects, and events. It differs from insanity, mainly in its being a self-induced madness, for which, as for drunkenness, the sufferer is morally accountable, and in yielding to which, as in drunkenness, he, by suffering his will to pa.s.s beyond the control of reason, makes himself responsible, both legally and morally, for whatever crimes or wrongs he commits in this state of mental alienation.
*There is no appet.i.te, desire, or affection which may not become a pa.s.sion*, and there is no pa.s.sion which does not impair the sense of right, and interfere with the discharge of duty. The appet.i.tes, the lower desires, the malevolent affections, and, not infrequently, love, when they become pa.s.sions, have their issues in vice and crime. The n.o.bler desires and affections when made pa.s.sions, may not lead to positive evil, but can hardly fail to derange the fitting order of life, and to result in the dereliction of some of its essential duties. Thus, the pa.s.sion for knowledge may render one indifferent to his social and religious obligations. Philanthropy, when a pa.s.sion, overlooks nearer for more remote claims of duty, and is very p.r.o.ne to omit self-discipline and self-culture in its zeal for world-embracing charities. Even the religious affections, when they a.s.sume the character of pa.s.sions, either, on the one hand, are kindled into wild fanaticism, or, on the other, lapse into a self-absorbed quietism, which forgets outside duties in the luxury of devout contemplation; and though either of these is to be immeasurably preferred to indifference, they both are as immeasurably inferior to that piety, equally fervent and rational, which neglects neither man for G.o.d, nor G.o.d for man, and which remains mindful of all human and earthly relations, fitnesses, and duties, while at the same time it retains its hold of faith, hope, and habitual communion, on the higher life.
*Habit* also involves the suspension of reason and motive in the performance of individual acts; but it differs from pa.s.sion in that its acts were in the beginning prompted by reason and motive. Indeed, it may be plausibly maintained that in each habitual act there is a virtual remembrance-a recollection too transient to be itself remembered-of the reasoning or motive which induced the first act of the series. In some cases the habitual act is performed, as it is said, unconsciously, certainly with a consciousness so evanescent as to leave no trace of itself. In other cases the act is performed consciously, but as by a felt necessity, in consequence of an uneasy sensation-a.n.a.logous to hunger and thirst-which can be allayed in this way only. Under this last head we may cla.s.s, in the first place, habits of criminal indulgence, including the indulgence of morbid and depraved appet.i.te; secondly, many of those morally indifferent habits, which const.i.tute a large portion of a regular and systematic life; and thirdly, habits of virtuous conduct, of industry, of punctuality, of charity.
*Habit bears a most momentous part in the formation and growth of character*, whether for evil or for good. It is in the easy and rapid formation of habit that lies the imminent peril of single acts of vicious indulgence. The first act is performed with the determination that it shall be the last of its kind. But of all examples one"s own is that which he is most p.r.o.ne to follow, and of all bad examples one"s own is the most dangerous. The precedent once established, there is the strongest temptation to repeat it, still with a conscious power of self-control, and with the resolution to limit the degree and to arrest the course of indulgence, so as to evade the ultimate disgrace and ruin to which it tends. But before the pre-determined limit is reached, the indulgence has become a habit; its suspension is painful; its continuance or renewal seems essential to comfortable existence; and even in those ultimate stages when its very pleasure has lapsed into satiety, and then into wretchedness, its discontinuance threatens still greater wretchedness, because the craving is even more intense when the enjoyment has ceased.
*The beneficent agency of habit no less deserves emphatic notice.* Its office in practical morality is a.n.a.logous to that of labor-saving inventions in the various departments of industry. A machine by which ten men can do the work that has been done by thirty, disengages the twenty for new modes of productive labor, and thus augments the products of industry and the comfort of the community. A good habit is a labor-saving instrument. The cultivating of any specific virtue to such a degree that it shall become an inseparable and enduring element of the character demands, at the outset, vigilance, self-discipline, and, not infrequently, strenuous effort. But when the exercise of that virtue has become habitual, and therefore natural, easy, and essential to one"s conscious well-being, it ceases to task the energies; it no longer requires constant watchfulness; its occasions are met spontaneously by the appropriate dispositions and acts. The powers which have been employed in its culture are thus set free for the acquisition of yet other virtues, and the formation of other good habits. Herein lies the secret of progressive goodness, of an ever nearer approach to a perfect standard of character.
The primal virtues are first made habits of the unceasing consciousness and of the daily life, and the moral power no longer needed for these is then employed in the cultivation of the finer traits of superior excellence,-the shaping of the delicate lines, roundings, and proportions, which const.i.tute "the beauty of holiness," the symmetry and grace of character that win not only abounding respect and confidence, but universal admiration and love.
*What has been said of habit, is true not only as to outward acts, but equally as to wonted directions and currents of thought, study, reflection, and reverie.* It is mainly through successive stages of habit that the mind grows in its power of application, research, and invention.
It is thus that the spirit of devotion is trained to ever clearer realization of sacred truth and a more fervent love and piety. It is thus that minds of good native capacity lose their apprehensive faculties and their working power; and thus, also, that moral corruption often, no doubt, takes place before the evil desires cherished within find the opportunity of actualizing themselves in a depraved life.
Chapter VIII.
VIRTUES, AND THE VIRTUES.
*The term virtue* is employed in various senses, which, though they cover a wide range, are yet very closely allied to one another, and to the initial conception in which they all have birth. Its primitive signification, as its structure(6) indicates, is _manliness_. Now what preeminently distinguishes, not so much the human race from the lower animals, as the full-grown and strong man from the feebler members of his own race, is the power of resolute, strenuous, persevering conflict and resistance. It is the part of a man worthy of the name to maintain his own position, to hold his ground against all invaders, to show a firm front against all hostile force, and to prefer death to conquest. All this is implied in the Greek and Roman idea of virtue, and is included in the Latin _virtus_, when it is used with reference to military transactions, so that its earliest meaning was, simply, _military prowess_. But with the growth of ethical philosophy, and especially with the cultivation by the Stoics of the sterner and hardier traits of moral excellence, men learned that there was open to them a more perilous battle-ground, a severer conflict, and a more glorious victory, than in mere physical warfare,-that there was a higher type of manliness in self-conquest, in the resistance and subdual of appet.i.te and pa.s.sion, in the maintenance of integrity and purity under intense temptation and amidst vicious surroundings, than in the proudest achievements of military valour. Virtue thus came to mean, not moral goodness in itself considered, but goodness militant and triumphant.(7)
But *words which have a complex signification always tend to slough off a part of their meaning*; and, especially, words that denote a state or property, together with its mode of growth or of manifestation, are p.r.o.ne to drop the latter, even though it may have given them root and form. Thus the term _virtue_ is often used to denote the qualities that const.i.tute human excellence, without direct reference to the conflict with evil, whence it gets its name, and in which those qualities have their surest growth and most conspicuous manifestation. There is still, however, a tacit reference to temptation and conflict in our use of the term. Though we employ it to denote goodness that has stood no very severe test, we use it only where such a test may be regarded as possible. Though we call a man virtuous who has been shielded from all corrupt examples and influences, and has had no inducements to be otherwise than good, we do not apply the epithet to the little child who cannot by any possibility have been exposed to temptation. Nor yet would we apply it to the perfect purity and holiness of the Supreme Being, who "cannot be tempted with evil."
Virtue then, in its more usual sense at the present time, denotes *conduct in accordance with the right*, or with the fitness of things, on the part of one who has the power to do otherwise. But in this sense there are few, if any, perfectly virtuous men. There are, perhaps, none who are equally sensitive to all that the right requires, and it is often the deficiencies of a character that give it its reputation for distinguished excellence in some one form of virtue, the vigilance, self-discipline, and effort which might have sustained the character in a well-balanced mediocrity being so concentrated upon some single department of duty as to excite high admiration and extended praise. There may be a deficient sensitiveness to some cla.s.ses of obligations, while yet there is no willing or conscious violation of the right, and in such cases the character must be regarded as virtuous. But if in any one department of duty a person is consciously false to his sense of right, even though in all other respects he conforms to the right, he cannot be deemed virtuous, nor can there be any good ground for a.s.surance that he may not, with sufficient inducement, violate the very obligations which he now holds in the most faithful regard. This is what is meant by that saying of St. James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all,"-not that he who commits a single offence through inadvertency or sudden temptation, is thus guilty; but he who willingly and deliberately violates the right as to matters in which he is the most strongly tempted to wrong and evil, shows an indifference to the right which will lead him to observe it only so long and so far as he finds it convenient and easy so to do.
Here we are naturally led to inquire whether there is any essential *connection between virtue and piety*,-between the faithful discharge of the common duties of life and loving loyalty toward the Supreme Being. On this subject extreme opinions have been held, sceptics and unbelievers, on the one side, Christians with a leaven of antinomianism on the other, maintaining the entire independence of virtue on piety; while Christians of the opposite tendency have represented them, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary, as inseparable. We shall find, on examination, that they are separable and independent, yet auxiliary each to the other. Virtue is conduct in accordance with the right, and we have seen that right and wrong, as moral distinctions, depend not on the Divine nature, will or law,(8) but on the inherent, necessary conditions of being. The atheist cannot escape or disown them. Whatever exists-no matter how it came into being-must needs have its due place, affinities, adaptations, and uses. An intelligent dweller among the things that are, cannot but know something of their fitnesses and harmonies, and so far as he acts upon them cannot but feel the obligation to recognize their fitnesses, and thus to create or restore their harmonies. Even to the atheist, vice is a violation of fitnesses which he knows or may know. It is opposed to his conscientious judgment. He has with regard to it an inevitable sense of wrong. We can, therefore, conceive of an atheist"s being rigidly virtuous, and that on principle. Though among the ancient Stoics there were some eminently devout men, there were others, men of impregnable virtue, whose theology was too vague and meagre to furnish either ground or nourishment for piety. While, therefore, in the mutual and reciprocal fitnesses that pervade the universe we find demonstrative evidence of the being, unity, and moral perfectness of the Creator, we are constrained to acknowledge the possibility of these fitnesses being recognized in the conduct of life by those who do not follow them out to the great truths of theology to which they point and lead.
But, on the other hand, where there is a clear knowledge of, or an undoubting belief in the being and providence of G.o.d, and especially for persons who receive Christianity as a revelation of the truth, though, as an affection, piety is independent of virtue, the duties of piety are an essential part of virtue. If G.o.d is, we stand in definable relations to Him, and those relations are made definite through Christianity. Those relations have their fitnesses, and we see not how he can be a thoroughly virtuous man, who, discerning these fitnesses with the understanding, fails to recognize them in conduct. Conscience can take cognizance only of the fitnesses which the individual man knows or believes; but it does take cognizance of all the fitnesses which he knows or believes. Virtue may coexist with a very low standard of emotional piety; but it cannot coexist, in one who believes the truths of religion, with blasphemy, irreverence, or the conscious violation or neglect of religious obligations. He who is willingly false to his relations with the Supreme Being, needs only adequate temptation to make him false to his human relations, and to the fitnesses of his daily life. Moreover, while, as we have said, virtue may exist where there is but little emotional piety, virtue can hardly fail to cherish piety. Loyalty of conduct deepens loyalty of spirit; obedience nourishes love; he who faithfully does the will of G.o.d can hardly fail to become worshipful and devout; and while men are more frequently led by emotional piety to virtue, there can be no doubt that with many the process is reversed, and virtue leads to emotional piety. Then again, we have seen that religion supplies the most efficient of all motives to a virtuous life,-motives adequate to a stress of temptation and trial which suffices to overpower and neutralize all inferior motives.
Virtue is one and indivisible in its principle and essence, yet *in its external manifestations presenting widely different aspects*, and eliciting a corresponding diversity in specific traits of character. Thus, though intrinsic fitness be equally the rule of conduct at a pleasure-party and by a pauper"s bed-side, the conduct of the virtuous man will be widely different on these two occasions; and not only so, but with the same purpose of fidelity to what is fitting and right, his dispositions, aims, and endeavors on these two occasions will have little or nothing in common except the one pervading purpose. Hence virtue may under different forms a.s.sume various names, and may thus be broken up into separate _virtues_. These are many or few, according as we distribute in smaller or larger groups the occasions for virtuous conduct, or a.n.a.lyze with greater or less minuteness the sentiments and dispositions from which it proceeds.
*The cardinal*(*9*)* virtues* are the _hinge_-virtues, those on which the character _hinges_ or turns, those, the possession of all which, would const.i.tute a virtuous character, while the absence of any one of them would justly forfeit for a man the epithet _virtuous_. There are other less salient and essential qualities-minor virtues-the possession of which adds to the symmetry, beauty, and efficiency of the character, but which one may lack, and yet none the less deserve to be regarded as a virtuous man. Thus, justice is a cardinal virtue; gentleness, one of the lesser rank.
We propose to adopt as a *division of the virtues* one which recognizes four cardinal virtues, corresponding to four cla.s.ses under which may be comprehended all the fitnesses of man"s condition in this world, and the duties proceeding from them respectively.(10) There are fitnesses and duties appertaining, first, to one"s own being, nature, capacities, and needs; secondly, to his relations to his fellow-beings; thirdly, to his disposition and conduct with reference to external objects and events beyond his control; and fourthly, to his arrangement, disposal, and use of objects under his control. It is difficult to find names which in their common use comprehend severally all the contents of each of these four divisions; but yet they are all comprised within the broadest significance of the terms Prudence, Justice, Fort.i.tude, and Order. Thus employed, Prudence, or providence, includes all the duties of self-government and self-culture; Justice denotes all that is due to G.o.d and man, embracing piety and benevolence; Fort.i.tude, which is but a synonyme for strength, is an appropriate general name for every mode, whether of defiance, resistance, or endurance, in which man shows himself superior to his inevitable surroundings; and Order is extended to all subjects in which the question of duty is a question of time, place, or measure.