152 SSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



embodied in the written or unwritten law of the 

 state, and "writ small" in the irarpiK.^ Trpoara^c. 

 In the early days of moral training obedience 

 covers the whole ground, ro on not TO SIOTI. The 

 law is to the child as yet "positive," not "natural." 

 The child does just acts, but he is not yet just. 

 He acts from instinct or habit, not from reason. 

 It is not virtue, and yet it is a necessary prepara- 

 tion for virtue, i.e. for a state in which he not only 

 acts KOTO, Aoyov, but /ztra \oyov, does right and for 

 the sake of right, when by an almost imperceptible 

 transition and a progressive purification of moral 

 motive, childish obedience gives way to manly 

 virtue, and the man not only does right, but is good, 

 and in his conscious conformity to the law becomes 

 a law unto himself, olov vo/zoe wv taurw . . . KO.VWV 

 KOI /uerpov aurwv aiv. 



The virtuous act is known by the fact that it 

 not only avoids excess and defect, but realizes a 

 law of symmetry. Like a work of art, it manifests 

 a sort of perfect proportion. You can neither add 

 to nor take away from it without spoiling it. It 

 lies between two vices of which one leans more to 

 virtue's side than the other, yet in its nature it is 

 perfect, a/cporrje- You cannot have too much of it, 

 just as you cannot have too little of vice. 



The virtuous man does virtuous acts in a right 

 spirit. He is in conscious accord with the Aoyoe 

 or moral law which enjoins right action. He acts 



