ndidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

Following the clue which was thrust into our hand
by the marked difference of the feelings of men upon
the subject from those of women, we were at once
satisfied that Reineke's goodness, if he had any, must lay
rather in the active than the passive department of life.
The negative obedience to prohibitory precepts, under
which women are bound as well as men, as was already
too clear, we were obliged to surrender as hopeless.
But it seemed as if, with respect to men whose business
is to do, and to labour, and to accomplish, this negative
test was a seriously imperfect one; and it was quite as
possible that a man who unhappily had broken many
prohibitions might yet exhibit positive excellencies, as
that he might walk through life picking his way with
the utmost assiduity, risking nothing and doing nothing,
not committing a single sin, but keeping his talent
carefully wrapt up in a napkin, and get sent, in the end, to
outer darkness for his pains, as an unprofitable servant;
and this appeared the more important to us, as it was
very little dwelt upon by religious or moral teachers;
and at the end of six thousand years, the popular notion
of virtue, as far as it could get itself expressed, had not
risen beyond the mere abstinence from certain specific
bad actions.

The king of the beasts forgives Reineke on account
of the substantial services which at various times he has
rendered. His counsel was always the wisest, his hand
the promptest in cases of difficulty; and all that
dexterity, and politeness, and courtesy, and exquisite culture
had not been learnt without an effort or without
conquering many undesirable tendencies in himself. Men
are not born with any art in its perfection, and he
had made himself valuable by his own sagacity and
exertion. Now, on the human stage, a man who has
made himself valuable is certain to be valued.
However we may pretend to estimate men according to the
wrong things which they have done, or abstained from
doing, we in fact follow the example of Nobel, the king
of the beasts, and give them their places among us
according to the serviceableness and capability which
they display. We might mention not a few eminent
public servants, whom the world delights to honour--
ministers, statesmen, lawyers, men of science, artists,
poets, soldiers, who, if they were tried by the negative
test, would show but a poor figure; yet their value is
too real