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 _ca va sans dire_. The calculation of the
greatest happiness is not performed quite so easily as a rule of 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."[46]
If mankind cannot be engaged in practices "full of austerity and
rigour," by the love of righteousness 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 is an awful Goddess,
whose ministers are the Furies, and whose highest reward is peace.
It is not improbable that Hume would have qualified all this as
enthusiasm or fanaticism, or both; but he virtually admits it:--
"Now, as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account,
without fee or reward, merely for the immediate satisfaction which
it conveys, it is requisite that there should be some sentiment
which it touches; some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you
please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and
which embraces the one and rejects the other.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244