XI 



THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS 237 



ears of most of the pilgrims who toil painfully, 

 not without many a stumble and many a bruise, 

 along the rough and steep roads which lead to the 

 higher life. 



Virtue is undoubtedly beneficent ; but the man 

 is to be envied to whom her ways seem in anywise 

 playful. And though she may not talk much 

 about suffering and self-denial, her silence on that 

 topic may be accounted for on the principle $a va 

 sans dire. The calculation of the greatest happi- 

 ness is not performed quite so easily as a rule 01 

 three sum ; while, in the hour of temptation, the 

 question will crop up, whether, as something has 

 to be sacrificed, a bird in the hand is not worth 

 two in the bush ; whether it may not be as well to 

 give up the problematical greater happiness in the 

 future, for a certain great happiness in the present, 

 and 



" Buy the merry madness of one hour 

 With the long irksomeness of following time. " l 



If mankind cannot be engaged in practices " full 

 of austerity and rigour," by the love of righteous- 

 ness and the fear of evil, without seeking for 

 other compensation than that which flows from 

 the gratification of such love and the consciousness 

 of escape from debasement, they are in a bad case. 

 For they will assuredly find that virtue presents 

 no very close likeness to the sportive leader of the 

 joyous hours in Hume's rosy picture ; but that she 

 1 Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revek, act i. 



