I am often thus able to go on when
I could not otherwise do so.
Vice and Virtue
i
Virtue is something which it would be impossible to over-rate if it
had not been over-rated. The world can ill spare any vice which has
obtained long and largely among civilised people. Such a vice must
have some good along with its deformities. The question "How, if
every one were to do so and so?" may be met with another "How, if no
one were to do it?" We are a body corporate as well as a collection
of individuals.
As a matter of private policy I doubt whether the moderately vicious
are more unhappy than the moderately virtuous; "Very vicious" is
certainly less happy than "Tolerably virtuous," but this is about
all. What pass muster as the extremes of virtue probably make people
quite as unhappy as extremes of vice do.
The truest virtue has ever inclined toward excess rather than
asceticism; that she should do this is reasonable as well as
observable, for virtue should be as nice a calculator of chances as
other people and will make due allowance for the chance of not being
found out. Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without
compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow
for an inevitable fall in playing. So the Psalmist says, "If thou,
Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord who may
abide it?" and by this he admits that the highest conceivable form of
virtue still leaves room for some compromise with vice.
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