Page:Moralreflection00stangoog.djvu/24

xvi mankind and their actions. If he had, however, any regular I design^ it was not so much to point out self-love as the primum mobile, but rather to expose the hypocrisy and pretence so current in the world under the name of virtue This will be apparent from the heading he prefixed to the work, "Our virtues are generally only disguised vices," and from the commencement of the last maxim, "After having spoken of the falsity of so many apparent virtues," &€ The key of his system (if he had one) would seem to lie in the maxim, that "Truth does not do so much good, a Its apearances do evil, in the world." The assumption or the name of virtue is prejudicial in many ways. It opens gates suicidally on the morals of the actor, because a long course of imposition on others invariably ends in self-deceit; "We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others," as our Author remarks, "that at length we disguise ourselves to ourselves." The history of the world is full of examples of men whose career is represented in these words. But this assumption is still more pernicious to the interests of virtue itself To use a common illustrator nothing depreciates a sound coinage more than the existence of well-executed counterfeits. Nothing tends so much t disgust men with goodness, as the hollowness and artificiality of what is palmed on them for goodness. Repeatedly disappointed in their search for the reality, they are led to doubt its existence, and it is this feeling which is embodied in the bitter exclamation of the despairing Roman:—" Virtue, I have worshippedworshiped [sic] thee as a real good, but at length find thee an empty name."

If the maxims can aid men to distinguish the true from the false, the sterling from the alloy, they are so far from injuring the cause of virtue that they obviously render it t most important service. It will readily be admitted also