LESSON VI.
Virtue is always an appellant to justice. It is manifested by the acts of an intelligent being of correct and benevolent motives, contributing to the general good. Consequently an act, however benevolent may have been the motive of the actor, cannot be a virtuous act if it have an evil tendency. Ignorance can never be virtue: so, no man can be virtuous who acts from a wicked motive, however beneficial may be the result. The motive must be pure, and the effect good, before the act or the actor is virtuous. A man, may be virtuous, but in so low a degree as to not merit the appellation: we must compare what he does, with what he has the power of doing. The widow’s mite may be an example.
We submit the inquiry—Is not the deduction clear, that men are not equal—neither physically, religiously, mentally, or morally? Can they then be so politically? Will not the proposition be correct, that political equality can never exist with an inequality in these previous terms?
Raynal has said, we think correctly, “that equality will always be an unintelligible fiction, so long as the capacities of men are unequal, and their claims have neither guarantee nor sanction by which they can be enforced.” “On a dit que nous avions tous les mêmes droits. J'ignore ce que c'est que les mêmes droits, où il y a inégalitè de talens ou de force, et nulle garantie, nulle sanction.” Raynal, Revolution d'Amerique, p. 34.