been especially cultivated.
Further, if we leave out of sight these refinements, and content
ourselves with the most popular conceptions of morality, there is this
immeasurable difficulty--so great, yet so little considered,--that
goodness is positive as well as negative, and consists in the active
accomplishment of certain things which we are bound to do, as well as in
the abstaining from things which we are bound not to do. And here the
warp and woof vary in shade and pattern. Many a man, with the help of
circumstances, may pick his way clear through life, never having
violated one prohibitive commandment, and yet at last be fit only for
the place of the unprofitable servant--he may not have committed either
sin or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a single unselfish
emotion. Another, meanwhile, shall have been hurried by an impulsive
nature into fault after fault--shall have been reckless, improvident,
perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven
than the Pharisee--fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there
could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative generosity and
self-forgetfulness--fitter, because to those who love much, much is
forgiven. Fielding had no occasion to make Blifil, behind his decent
coat, a traitor and a hypocrite. It would have been enough to have
coloured him in and out alike in the steady hues of selfishness, afraid
of offending the upper powers as he was afraid of offending
Allworthy--not from any love for what was good, but solely because it
would be imprudent--because the pleasure to be gained was not worth the
risk of consequences. Such a Blifil would have answered the novelist's
purpose--for he would have remained a worse man in the estimation of
some of us than Tom Jones.

So the truth is; but unfortunately it is only where accurate knowledge
is stimulated by affection, that we are able to feel it. Persons who
live beyond our own circle, and, still more, persons who have lived in
another age, receive what is called justice, not charity; and justice is
supposed to consist in due allotments of censure for each special act of
misconduct, leaving merit unrecognised. There are many reasons for this
harsh method of judging. We must decide of men by what we know, and it
is easier to know faults than to know virtues. Faults are specific,
easily described, easily appreciated, easily remembered. And again,
there is, or may be, hypocrisy in v