of virtue is the mind at rest, with a firm, deliberate resolution to
bring its law into practice. That is the state of health in the
moral life; on the contrary, the emotion, even when it is excited by
the idea of the good, is a momentary glitter which leaves exhaustion
after it. We may apply the term fantastically virtuous to the man
who will admit nothing to be indifferent in respect of morality
(adiaphora), and who strews all his steps with duties, as with
traps, and will not allow it to be indifferent whether a man eats fish
or flesh, drink beer or wine, when both agree with him; a micrology
which, if adopted into the doctrine of virtue, would make its rule a
tyranny.



REMARK



{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 210}

Virtue is always in progress, and yet always begins from the
beginning. The former follows from the fact that, objectively
considered, it is an ideal and unattainable, and yet it is a duty
constantly to approximate to it. The second is founded subjectively on
the nature of man which is affected by inclinations, under the
influence of which virtue, with its maxims adopted once for all, can
never settle in a position of rest; but, if it is not rising,
inevitably falls; because moral maxims cannot, like technical, be
based on custom (for this belongs to the physical character of the
determination of will); but even if the practice of them become a