The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

i

Virtue is something which it would be impossible to over-rate if it had not been over-rated.  The world can ill spare any vice which has obtained long and largely among civilised people.  Such a vice must have some good along with its deformities.  The question “How, if every one were to do so and so?” may be met with another “How, if no one were to do it?” We are a body corporate as well as a collection of individuals.

As a matter of private policy I doubt whether the moderately vicious are more unhappy than the moderately virtuous; “Very vicious” is certainly less happy than “Tolerably virtuous,” but this is about all.  What pass muster as the extremes of virtue probably make people quite as unhappy as extremes of vice do.

The truest virtue has ever inclined toward excess rather than asceticism; that she should do this is reasonable as well as observable, for virtue should be as nice a calculator of chances as other people and will make due allowance for the chance of not being found out.  Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.  So the Psalmist says, “If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss:  O Lord who may abide it?” and by this he admits that the highest conceivable form of virtue still leaves room for some compromise with vice.  So again Shakespeare writes, “They say, best men are moulded out of faults; And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.”

ii

The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it.

iii

God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good.  He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good.

iv

As there is less difference than we generally think between the happiness of men who seem to differ widely in fortune, so is there also less between their moral natures; the best are not so much better than the worst, nor the worst so much below the best as we suppose; and the bad are just as important an element in the general progress as the good, or perhaps more so.  It is in strife that life lies, and were there no opposing forces there would be neither moral nor immoral, neither victory nor defeat.

v

If virtue had everything her own way she would be as insufferable as dominant factions generally are.  It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

vi

Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any who have had any claim to be considered virtuous.  It is the sub-vicious who best understand virtue.  Let the virtuous people stick to describing vice—which they can do well enough.