become cowardly, or lustful, or unjust, it is because at the moment we choose ignorantly. Our education, and the government under which we live, and our inherited physical and psychical constitution, are the causes of our error. Vice is due to illusion, to the temporary obscuration of the real qualities of things and the real meaning of acts.

This view of the nature of vice has been emphasized by modern thinkers, especially those who have approached the subject from a biological or medical point of view. The tendency is to look at crime as due to physical conditions inherited or acquired, for which society may be in some sense responsible, but hardly the criminal himself.

On the other hand, common sense revolts against the paradox that no man is voluntarily bad. The modern and more subjective spirit, due chiefly to Christianity, recognizes to the full the truth of the poet's

"Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor."

We believe we can resist temptation if we will; and we hesitate to ask if the will is always possible. We know that our weakness of character is largely due to our own acts; and we cannot say for certain that any giver individual, not insane or idiotic, was at first so morally incapable as to be absolutely unable to control his vicious inclinations if acted upon by adequate stimuli.1

1 We know a man's character may change on being presented

It does not seem possible to regard vice (or virtue) as in the highest sense voluntary-voluntary as the plain man understands the word-unless we start from the doctrine of free-will. The Determinist regards our actions as caused by our desires and feelings; and these in turn are the products of two factors, the one being our environment, including government, society, etc., and the other our innate psychical disposition and tendencies, or, which comes to the same thing, inherited organic structures. If this be so, our acts are the results of causes over which the pure subject, the ultimate Ego, has no control. The empirical self, the character which is built up by the interaction of the two factors, is as much a phenomenon to it as any external object. It sees the wish to improve arise, and sees it carry its point or fail; but the origination of the wish and its success or failure, are not due to the consciousness which watches it.

In a sense we may hold that vice is not entirely voluntary, without minimizing the distinction between good and evil. "They know not what they do," is

true of other offenders besides those who crucified the Son of Man. The evil comes in choosing the lower good where the higher is attainable; in the imperfect sympathies and feeble imagination which lead us to prefer the anti-social and the selfish ideals to the altruistic.

with fresh stimuli; and we commonly assume that the man may encounter these stimuli if he wills to do so.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF MORAL EXCELLENCES.

§ 1. The Consistency of Moral Excellences. We have seen that good conduct may be looked at as a system of moral excellences, or as a system of compliance with moral law. But we are naturally anxious to see whether these two respectively (1) cover the whole of good conduct, and (2) can be reduced to one common principle. This involves the problem of the classification of virtues or duties.

The need for the assumption that moral laws cover the whole ground of conduct, and that they are never in real conflict-in other words, the need for continuity and consistency in moral law-is chiefly felt by those who adopt the purely jural view. If we take the other view, and regard virtuous conduct as a sum of excellences, we do not necessarily demand that all of these excellences should be exhibited in their most complete form by the same person. A man, especially if he be a soldier, may be somewhat less temperate than perfection demands, so that he be thoroughly courageous and generous; just as we may excuse deficient

technique in a picture, if the drawing and colour and sentiment be beyond praise. We recognize that these different excellences in morality are, like those of art, to some extent mutually exclusive. The different excellences have come to be recognized independently of conscious classification as good, and we are not startled when we realize that they not only overlap, but clash. Prudence, as ordinarily conceived, involves some defect of courage; regard for consequences to oneself is as much of the essence of prudence, as disregard for them is of the essence of courage. The paradox that the prudent man who avoids giving way to anger is really brave, is as untrue as the paradox that after all courage is only cowardice as to the opinion of others.

us.

But this admission can hardly be made if we look at morality as a system of laws all equally binding on The jural moralist, like the lawyer, is obliged to assume that his laws are consistent, as well as that they cover the whole ground, that in fulfilling one you cannot be breaking another.

§ 2. Classifications adopted by early Moralists.

Some virtues are evidently subaltern, and can be conveniently placed under others. Thus modesty comes under temperance, while honesty comes under justice, and pity under benevolence. But some of these more specific virtues have a claim to come under

two or three of the more generic. Thus patience comes under both temperance and courage, caution under temperance and wisdom, candour under veracity and justice.

Socrates taught that virtue is knowledge-more particularly knowledge of ends, the things really worth seeking. Hence the virtues are essentially one, because they are only applications of wisdom, the supreme excellence, to the varying exigencies of life. Plato's view is more subtle and less simple. He enumerates σοφία, wisdom, ανδρεία, courage, σωφροouvn, temperance, and Sikatooúvn, justice or uprightness, including law-observance generally. Plato's basis of classification is psychological: oopía is the special excellence of vouc or intellect; avopeía is the special excellence of Ouμoç, or the active impulses ; σωφροσύνη that of ἐπιθυμία, the appetitive or concupiscent elements in the soul. These, the "four cardinal virtues" of the Christian moralists,' are mentioned in the Alexandrian "Wisdom of Solomon," viii. 7, and their essential unity is recognized.

They are so called, not only as the most important, but because they are generic virtues under which the others may be subserved.

Aristotle's list scarcely rises to the dignity of a classification. It does not discriminate between the higher and the subaltern virtues. It is based on that of Plato, but he adds many minor excellences, and

1 The expression is said to occur first in the writings of St. Ambrose.