There is nothing perhaps so satisfactory to persons who
pride themselves on their intellectuality, as a certain kind of
spurious philosophy which balances virtue and vice as it were on the
point of a finger, and argues prettily on the way the two can be
easily merged into each other, almost without perception. "If
without perception, then without sin," says the sophist; "it is
merely a question of balance." Certainly if generosity drifts into
extravagance you have a virtue turned into a vice;--but there is one
thing these spurious debaters cannot do, and that is to turn a vice
into a virtue. That cannot be done, and has never been done. A vice
is a vice, and its inherent quality is to "wax fat and gross," and
to generally enlarge itself;--whereas, a virtue being a part of the
Spiritual quality and acquired with difficulty, it must be
continually practised, and guarded in the practice, lest it lapse
into vice. We are always forgetting that we have been, and still are
in a state of Evolution,--out of the Beast God has made Man,--but
now He expects us, with all the wisdom, learning and experience He
has given us, to evolve for ourselves from Man the Angel,--the
supreme height of His divine intention.
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