Virtue, according to this view, is a detective, inquisitor, and flagellator of the vices—­especially of the vices that are so unpopular that the mob may be easily persuaded to attack them.  One of the chief differences between the two kinds of virtue, I fancy, is that while true virtue regards the mob-spirit as an enemy, simular virtue (if we may adopt the Shakespearean phrase) looks to the mob as its cousin and its ally.  To be virtuous in the latter sense is obviously as easy as hunting rats or cats.  Virtue of this kind is simply the eternal huntsman in man’s breast with eyes aglint for a victim.  It is Mr Murdstone’s virtue—­the persecutor’s virtue.  It is the virtue that warms the bosom of every man who is more furious with his neighbour’s sins than with his own.  If virtue is merely an inflammation against our neighbour’s sins, what man on earth is so mean as to be incapable of it?  To be virtuous in this fashion is as easy as lying.  Those who abstain from it do so not out of lack of heart, but from choice.  We have read of the popularity of the ducking-stool in former days for women taken in adultery.  Savage mobs may have thought that by putting their hearts into this amusement they were making up to virtue for the long years of neglect to which, as individuals, they had subjected her.  They might not have been virtue’s lovers, but at least they could be virtue’s bullies.  After all, virtue itself is no bad sport, when chasing, kicking, thumping, and yelling are made the chief part of the game.  Sending dogs coursing after a hare is nothing to it.  Man’s enjoyment of the chase never rises to the finest point of ecstasy save when his victim is a human being.  Man’s inhumanity to man, says the poet, makes countless thousands mourn.  But think also of the countless thousands that it makes rejoice!  We should always remember that the Crucifixion was an exceedingly popular event, and in no quarter more so than among the virtuously indignant.  It would probably never have taken place had it not been for the close alliance between the virtuously indignant and the mob.

To be fair to the virtuously indignant and the mob, they do not insist beyond reason that their victim shall be a bad man.  Good hunting may be had even among the saints, and who does not enjoy the spectacle of a citizen distinguished mainly for his unblemished character being dragged down into the dust?  We have no reason to believe that the people who were burned during the Inquisition were worse than their neighbours, yet the mob, we are told, used to gather enthusiastically and dance round the flames.  The destructive instincts of the mob are such that in certain moods it is ready to destroy any kind of man, just as the destructive instincts of a puppy are such that in certain moods it is ready to destroy any sort of book—­whether Smiles’s Self-Help or Mademoiselle de Maupin is a matter of perfect indifference.  The virtuously indignant maintain their power by constantly inciting