of an ever nearer approach to a perfect standard of character.
The primal virtues are first made habits of the unceasing consciousness
and of the daily life, and the moral power no longer needed for these is
then employed in the cultivation of the finer traits of superior
excellence,--the shaping of the delicate lines, roundings, and proportions,
which constitute "the beauty of holiness," the symmetry and grace of
character that win not only abounding respect and confidence, but
universal admiration and love.

*What has been said of habit, is true not only as to outward acts, but
equally as to wonted directions and currents of thought, study,
reflection, and reverie.* It is mainly through successive stages of habit
that the mind grows in its power of application, research, and invention.
It is thus that the spirit of devotion is trained to ever clearer
realization of sacred truth and a more fervent love and piety. It is thus
that minds of good native capacity lose their apprehensive faculties and
their working power; and thus, also, that moral corruption often, no
doubt, takes place before the evil desires cherished within find the
opportunity of actualizing themselves in a depraved life.

Chapter VIII.

VIRTUES, AND THE VIRTUES.

*The term virtue* is employed in various senses, which, though they cover
a wide range, are yet very closely allied to one another, and to the
initial conception in which they all have birth. Its primitive
signification, as its structure(6) indicates, is _manliness_. Now what
preeminently distinguishes, not so much the human race from the lower
animals, as the full-grown and strong man from the feebler members of his
own race, is the power of resolute, strenuous, persevering conflict and
resistance. It is the part of a man worthy of the name to maintain his own
position, to hold his ground against all invaders, to show a firm front
against all hostile force, and to prefer death to conquest. All this is
implied in the Greek and Roman idea of virtue, and is included in the
Latin _virtus_, when it is used with reference to military transactions,
so that its earliest meaning was, simply, _military prowess_. But with the
growth of ethical philosophy, and especially with the cultivation by the
Stoics of the sterner and hardier traits of moral excellence, men learned
that there was open to them a more perilous battle-ground, a severer
conflict, and a more