especially valuable, in an educational respect, to gain an
insight, into the transition of which each virtue is empirically
capable, into a negative as well as into a positive extreme. The
differences between the extremes and the golden mean are differences in
quality, although they arrive at this difference in quality by means of
difference in quantity. Kant has, as is well known, attacked the
Aristotelian doctrine of the ethical [Greek: mesotes], since he was
considering the qualitative difference of the mind as differentiating
principle; this was correct for the subject with which he dealt, but in
the objective development we do arrive on the other hand at the
determination of a quantitative limit; e.g. a man, with the most earnest
intention of doing right, may be in doubt whether he has not, in any
task, done more or less than was fitting for him.--

--As no virtue can cease its demands for us, no one can permit any
exceptions or any provisional circumstances to come in the way of his
duties. Our moral culture will always certainly manifest itself in very
unequal phases if we, out of narrowness and weakness, neglect entirely
one virtue while we diligently cultivate another. If we are forced into
such unequal action, we are not responsible for the result; but it is
dangerous and deserves punishment if we voluntarily encourage it. The
pupil must be warned against a certain moral negligence which consists
in yielding to certain weaknesses, faults, or crimes, a little longer
and a little longer, because he has fixed a certain time after which he
intends to do better. Up to that time he allows himself to be a loiterer
in ethics. Perhaps he will assert that his companions, his surroundings,
his position, &c., must be changed before he can alter his internal
conduct. Wherever education or temperament favors sentimentality, we
shall find birth-days, new-year's day, confirmation day, &c., selected
as these turning points. It is not to be denied that man proceeds in his
internal life from epoch to epoch, and renews himself in his most
internal nature, nor can we deny that moments like those mentioned are
especially favorable in man to an effort towards self-transformation
because they invite introspection; but it is not to be endured that the
youth, while looking forward to such a moment, should consciously
persist in his evil-doing. If he does, we shall have as consequences
that when the solemn moment which he has set at last