People divide off vice and virtue as though they were two things,
neither of which had with it anything of the other. This is not so.
There is no useful virtue which has not some alloy of vice, and hardly
any vice, if any, which carries not with it a little dash of virtue;
virtue and vice are like life and death, or mind and matter -things
which cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite. The most
absolute life contains death, and the corpse is still in many respects
living; so also it has been said, "If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to
mark what is done amiss," which shows that even the highest ideal we
can conceive will yet admit so much compromise with vice as shall
countenance the poor abuses of the time, if they are not too
outrageous. That vice pays homage to virtue is notorious; we call this
hypocrisy; there should be a word found for the homage which virtue
not unfrequently pays, or at any rate would be wise in paying, to
vice.
I grant that some men will find happiness in having what we all feel
to be a higher moral standard than others. If they go in for this,
however, they must be content with virtue as her own reward, and not
grumble if they find lofty Quixotism an expensive luxury, whose
rewards belong to a kingdom that is not of this world.
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