virtues are sometimes
identified with duties. Thus we speak of the virtue of veracity. But
obviously we may also refer to the duty of veracity. The word _arete_;
signifies 'force,' and was originally used as a property of bodies,
plants, or animals. {184} At first it had no ethical import. In Attic
usage it came to signify aptness or fitness of manhood for public life.
And this signification has shaped the future meaning of its Latin
equivalent--_virtus_ (from _vis_, strength, and not from _vir_, a man).

Plato gave to the term a certain ethical value in connection with his
moral view of the social life, so that Ethics came to be designated the
doctrine of virtues. In general, however, both by the Greek and Roman
moralists, and particularly the Stoics, the word _virtus_ retained
something of the sense of force or capacity--a quality prized in the
citizen. The English word is a direct transcript of the Latin. The
German noun, _Tugend_ (from _taugen_, to fit) means capability, and is
related to worth, honour, manliness. The word _arete_ does not
frequently occur in the New Testament.[1] In the few passages in which
it appears it is associated with praiseworthiness. In one passage[2] it
has a more distinctly ethical signification--'add to your faith
virtue'--where the idea is that of practical worth or manhood.

Virtue may be defined as the acquired power or capacity for moral action.
From the Christian point of view virtue is the complement, or rather the
outcome, of grace. Hence virtues are graces. In the Christian sense a
man is not virtuous when he has first appropriated by faith the new
principle of life. He has within him, indeed, the promise and potency of
all forms of goodness, but not until he has consciously brought his
personal impulses and faculties into the service of Christ can he be
called truly virtuous. Hence the Christian character is only
progressively realised. On the divine side virtue is a gift. On the
human side it is an activity. Our Lord's figure of the vine and the
branches represents the relation in which Christian character stands to
Christ. In like manner St. Paul regards the manifestations of the
Christian life as the fruit of the Spirit--the inevitable and natural
outgrowth of the divine seed of life implanted in the heart. Hence
arises the importance of {185} cultivating the inner life of the spirit
which is the root of all moral excellency. On the other hand it must be