of the Mosaic law.
(Exodus xxi. 38.) If, however, the common interpretation be
retained, the precept requires the shedding of the murderer's blood
by the _brother_ or nearest kinsman of the murdered man, and is not
obeyed by giving up the murderer to the _gallows_ and the _public
executioner_. Moreover, the same series of precepts prescribes an
abstinence from the natural juices of animal food, which would
require an entire revolution in our shambles, kitchens, and tables.
If these precepts were Divine commandments for men of all times,
they should be obeyed in full; but there is the grossest
inconsistency and absurdity in holding only a portion of one of them
sacred, and ignoring all the rest.

6 Latin, _virtus_, from _vir_, which denotes not, like _homo_, simply
a human being, but a man endowed with all appropriate manly
attributes, and comes from the same root with _vis_, strength. The
Greek synonyms of _virtus_, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}, is derived from {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, the god of
war, who in the heroic days of Greece was the ideal man, the
standard of human excellence, and whose name some lexicographers
regard--as it seems to me, somewhat fancifully--as allied through its
root to {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}, which bears about the same relation to {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} that
_vir_ bears to _homo_.

7 In the languages which have inherited or adopted the Latin _virtus_,
it retains its original signification, with one striking exception,
which yet is perhaps an exception in appearance rather than in
reality. In the Italian, virtu is employed to signify taste, and
_virtuoso_, which may denote a virtuous man, oftener means a
collector of objects of taste. We have here an historical landmark.
There was a period when, u