ht at least be so widely broken among the multitude
as to preserve them from utter destitution and pauperism in virtue; and
that even the simplest and lowest of the rabble should not be so
absolutely sons of perdition, but that each might say for himself,--"For
my part--no offence to the General, or any man of quality--I hope to be
saved." Whereas it is, on the contrary, implied by the habitual
expressions of the wisest aristocrats, that the completely developed
persons whose Justice and Fortitude--poles to the Cardinal points of
virtue--are marked as their sufficient characteristics by the great
Roman moralist in his phrase, "Justus, et tenax propositi," will in the
course of nature be opposed by a civic ardour, not merely of the
innocent and ignorant, but of persons developed in a contrary direction
to that which I have ventured to call "moral," and therefore not merely
incapable of desiring or applauding what is right, but in an evil
harmony, _prava jubentium_, clamorously demanding what is wrong.

183. The point to which both Natural and Divine Selection would permit
us to advance in severity towards this profane class, to which the
enduring "Ecce Homo," or manifestation of any properly human sentiment
or person, must always be instinctively abominable, seems to be
conclusively indicated by the order following on the parable of the
Talents,--"Those mine enemies, bring hither, and slay them before me."
Nor does it seem reasonable, on the other hand, to set the limits of
favouritism more narrowly. For even if, among fallible mortals, there
may frequently be ground for the hesitation of just men to award the
punishment of death to their enemies, the most beautiful story, to my
present knowledge, of all antiquity, that of Cleobis and Bito, might
suggest to them the fitness on some occasions, of distributing without
any hesitation the reward of death to their friends. For surely the
logical conclusion of the Bishop of Peterborough, respecting the
treatment due to old women who have nothing supernatural about them,
holds with still greater force when applied to the case of old women who
have everything supernatural about them; and while it might remain
questionable to some of us whether we had any right to deprive an
invalid who had no soul, of what might still remain to her of even
painful earthly existence; it would surely on the most religious grounds
be both our privilege and our duty at once to dismiss any troubleso