Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/210

 196 EDWARD WESTERMABCK : distinguishable from that of chastity. But even this virtue of resisting seductive impulses is not greater, ceteris paribus, in proportion as the victory is more difficult. Take two men with equally strong passions and equally exposed to tempta- tions, who earnestly endeavour to lead a chaste life. He who succeeds with less struggle, thanks to his greater power of will, is surely inferior neither in chastity, nor in self- restraint. Suppose, again, that the two men were exposed to different degrees of temptations. He who overcomes the greater temptations displays more self-restraint although the other man may possess this virtue in an equal degree but his chastity is certainly not made greater thereby. He may have more merit, but merit is not necessarily propor- tionate to virtue. In order to form a just opinion of a man's moral worth we must take into account the strength of his instinctive desires and the motives of his conduct. There are virtues that pay no regard to this. A sober man who has no taste for intoxicants possesses the virtue of sobriety in no less degree than a man whose sobriety is the result of a difficult conquest over a strong desire. He who is brave with a view of being applauded is not inferior in courage to him who faces dangers merely from a feeling of duty. The only thing that the possession of a virtue presupposes is that it should have been tried and tested. We cannot say that a people unacquainted with intoxicants possesses the virtue of sobriety, and that a man who never had anything to spend distinguishes himself for frugality. For to attribute a virtue to somebody is always to bestow upon him some degree of praise, and it is no praise, only irony, to say of a man that he " makes a virtue of necessity ". This fact that a man's virtues are no exact gauge of his moral worth is due to the stereotyped character of the virtues. They are broad generalisations of mental dis- positions which, on the whole, are regarded as laudable. In individual cases, on the other hand, the possession of a virtue may confer no merit upon the possessor. In illustration of the somewhat vague moral nature of the virtues may also be adduced the fact that among virtues have been ranked mental qualities which have little or nothing to do with morality, or which have a moral value only on certain conditions. The Aristotelian division of the virtues into intellectual and moral, and Hume's obliteration of the line between moral excellencies and mere gifts and talents, have now-a-days hardly any adherents. But in the popular catalogue of the virtues there is still included a