to have nothing but vices? And must man, who is capable of reason, be
incapable of virtue?'

'We are susceptible of friendship, justice, humanity, compassion, and
reason. O my friends, what then is virtue?'

'Disgust is no mark of health, nor is appetite a disorder; quite the
reverse. Thus we think of the body, but we judge the soul on other
principles. We suppose that a strong soul is one that is exempt from
passions, and as youth is more active and ardent than later age, we look
on it as a time of fever, and place the strength of man in his
decay.'[42]

* * * * *

The theological speculator insists that virtue lies in a constant and
fierce struggle between the will and the passions, between man and human
nature.

Vauvenargues founded his whole theory of life on the doctrine that the
will is not something independent of passions, inclinations, and ideas,
but on the contrary is a mere index moved and fixed by them, as the hand
of a clock follows the operation of the mechanical forces within.
Character is an integral unit. 'Whether it is reason or passion that
moves us, it is we who determine ourselves; it would be madness to
distinguish one's thoughts and sentiments from one's self.... No will in
men, which does not owe its direction to their temperament, their
reasoning, and their actual feelings.'[43] Virtue, then, is not
necessarily a condition of strife between the will and the rest of our
faculties and passions; no such strife is possible, for the will obeys