Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/618

602 a good deed performed without a good motive seems to be good. It is true that if the good which is striven for is not attained there is only a disposition to virtue, and not virtue itself; but the good is reached when the choice is made. Virtue is the attitude of mind from which results a disposition to follow the best. Its quality is altogether intellectual, for it is always called into play by some intellectual or rational principle. Yet for More this statement does not mean what it would for a writer of to-day. He includes in the intellectual nature everything that is in agreement with reason. There is no contradiction in including choice within it, provided only the latter is thought of as justified on intellectual grounds.

To say that virtue is choice, or even choice of the best, is altogether too vague a statement for practical purposes. What is 'the best,' and how do we know it? As an answer to both questions More has ready the shibboleth of his generation. The highest virtue consists in following what is seen by right reason to be best. Choice according to the passions is not virtue at all. This good with which right reason deals is of two kinds, both of which have claim upon man. One is that which is good in all places and at all times, the absolutely good, which is discerned by the boniform faculty. The thore varies according to circumstances. It is that which is good for something or somebody. Both these goods, from one point of view, are relative. The only good any one can know is that which seems good to him. He can never get outside himself to judge virtue.

Let us now consider the nature of happiness. If happiness is defined as pleasure, it must be assumed that there are different kinds of pleasure. Bodily pleasure and true happiness differ from each other so much that it is difficult even to compare them. The difference between them is not quantitative, but qualitative. Happiness is the pleasure which the mind