of great and peculiar moment. If this were not so, and the importance of
our inner state had reference only to our own feelings about it,
self-deception would be as good as virtue. To believe we were upright,
pure, and benevolent would be as good as to be so. We might have all the
pleasures of morality with none of its inconveniences; for it is easy,
if I may borrow a phrase of Mr. Tennyson's, to become _so false that we
take ourselves for true_; and thus, tested by any pain or joy that we
ourselves were conscious of, the results of the completest falsehood
would be the same as those of the completest virtue.

But let a man be never so perfect an instance of a result like this, no
positivist moralist would contend that he was virtuous, or that he could
be said, at his death, to have found the true treasure of life. On the
contrary his career would be regarded as, in the profoundest sense, a
tragedy. It is for this reason that such a value is set at present upon
feminine purity, and that we are accustomed to call the woman ruined
that has lost it. The outer harm done may not be great, and may lead to
no ill consequences. The harm is all within: the tragedy is in the soul
itself. But--and this is more important still--even here the harm may
not be recognised: the act in question may lead to no remorse; and yet
despite this, the case will be made no better. On the contrary it will
be made a great deal worse. Any father or husband would recognise this,
who was not professedly careless about all moral matters altogether. It
would not, for instance, console a positivist for his daughter's
seduction to know that the matter was hushed up, and that it gave the
lady herself no concern whatever. It is implied in the language of all
who profess to regard morality, that whether the guilty person be
conscious or no of any remorse or sorrow, the same harm has been done by
what we call guilt.