glorious victory, than in mere physical warfare,--that
there was a higher type of manliness in self-conquest, in the resistance
and subdual of appetite and passion, in the maintenance of integrity and
purity under intense temptation and amidst vicious surroundings, than in
the proudest achievements of military valour. Virtue thus came to mean,
not moral goodness in itself considered, but goodness militant and
triumphant.(7)

But *words which have a complex signification always tend to slough off a
part of their meaning*; and, especially, words that denote a state or
property, together with its mode of growth or of manifestation, are prone
to drop the latter, even though it may have given them root and form. Thus
the term _virtue_ is often used to denote the qualities that constitute
human excellence, without direct reference to the conflict with evil,
whence it gets its name, and in which those qualities have their surest
growth and most conspicuous manifestation. There is still, however, a
tacit reference to temptation and conflict in our use of the term. Though
we employ it to denote goodness that has stood no very severe test, we use
it only where such a test may be regarded as possible. Though we call a
man virtuous who has been shielded from all corrupt examples and
influences, and has had no inducements to be otherwise than good, we do
not apply the epithet to the little child who cannot by any possibility
have been exposed to temptation. Nor yet would we apply it to the perfect
purity and holiness of the Supreme Being, who "cannot be tempted with
evil."

Virtue then, in its more usual sense at the present time, denotes *conduct
in accordance with the right*, or with the fitness of things, on the part
of one who has the power to do otherwise. But in this sense there are few,
if any, perfectly virtuous men. There are, perhaps, none who are equally
sensitive to all that the right requires, and it is often the deficiencies
of a character that give it its reputation for distinguished excellence in
some one form of virtue, the vigilance, self-discipline, and effort which
might have sustained the character in a well-balanced mediocrity being so
concentrated upon some single department of duty as to excite high
admiration and extended praise. There may be a deficient sensitiveness to
some classes of obligations, while yet there is no willing or conscious
violation of the right, and in such cases the character must be reg