Yes, doctor.
THEOLOGIAN.
I will inform against you at the tribunal of Meaux.
HONEST MAN.
Go, and inform!
SECTION II.
What is virtue? Beneficence towards your neighbor. Can I call virtue anything but that which does good! I am indigent, thou art liberal. I am in danger, thou succorest me. I am deceived, thou tellest me the truth. I am neglected, thou consolest me. I am ignorant, thou teachest me. I can easily call thee virtuous, but what will become of the cardinal and theological virtues? Some will remain in the schools.
What signifies it to me whether thou art temperate? It is a precept of health which thou observest; thou art the better for it; I congratulate thee on it. Thou hast faith and hope; I congratulate thee still more; they will procure thee eternal life. Thy theological virtues are celestial gifts; thy cardinal ones are excellent qualities, which serve to guide thee; but they are not virtues in relation to thy neighbor. The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men. St. Paul was right in telling thee, that charity ranks above faith and hope.
But how! wilt thou admit of no other virtues than those which are useful to thy neighbor? How can I admit any others? We live in society; there is therefore nothing truly good for us but that which does good to society. An hermit will be sober, pious, and dressed in sackcloth: very well; he will be holy; but I will not call him virtuous until he shall have done some act of virtue by which men may have profited. While he is alone, he is neither beneficent nor the contrary; he is nobody to us. If St. Bruno had made peace in families, if he had assisted the indigent, he had been virtuous; having fasted and prayed in solitude, he is only a saint. Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce, must not be reckoned. If this saint were in the world, he would doubtless do good, but while he is not in the world, we have no reason to give him the name of virtuous: he will be good for himself, and not for us.
But, say you, if an hermit is gluttonous, drunken, given up to a secret debauch with himself, he is vicious; he is therefore virtuous, if he has the contrary qualities. I cannot agree to this: he is a very vile man, if he has the faults of which you speak; but he is not vicious, wicked, or punishable by society, to which his infamies do no harm. It may be presumed, that if he re-enters society, he will do evil to it; he then will be very vicious; and it is even more probable that he will be a wicked man, than it is certain that the other temperate and chaste hermit will be a good man; for in society faults augment, and good qualities diminish.