Again, supposing that we have made a truce with “opinions,” properly so called; supposing we have satisfied ourselves that it is idle to quarrel upon points on which good men differ, and that it is better to attend rather to what we certainly know; supposing that, either from superior wisdom, or from the conceit of superior wisdom, we have resolved that we will look for human perfection neither exclusively in the Old World nor exclusively in the New—­neither among Catholics nor Protestants, among Whigs or Tories, heathens or Christians—­that we have laid aside accidental differences and determined to recognize only moral distinctions, to love moral worth, and to hate moral evil, wherever we find them;—­even supposing all this, we have not much improved our position—­we cannot leap from our shadow.

Eras, like individuals, differ from one another in the species of virtue which they encourage.  In one age, we find the virtues of the warrior, in the next of the saint.  The ascetic and the soldier in their turn disappear; an industrial era succeeds, bringing with it the virtues of common sense, of grace, and refinement.  There is the virtue of energy and command, there is the virtue of humility and patient suffering.  All these are different, and all are, or may be, of equal moral value; yet, from the constitution of our minds, we are so framed that we cannot equally appreciate all; we sympathize instinctively with the person who most have been especially cultivated.  Further, if we leave out of sight these refinements, and content ourselves with the most popular conceptions of morality, there is this immeasurable difficulty—­so great, yet so little considered,—­that goodness is positive as well as negative, and consists in the active accomplishment of certain things which we are bound to do, as well as in the abstaining from things which we are bound not to do.  And here the warp and woof vary in shade and pattern.  Many a man, with the help of circumstances may pick his way clear through life, never having violated one prohibitive commandment, and yet at last be fit only for the place of the unprofitable servant—­he may not have committed either sin or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a single unselfish emotion.  Another, meanwhile, shall have been hurried by an impulsive nature into fault after fault, shall have been reckless, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of Heaven than the Pharisee—­fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative generosity and self-forgetfulness—­fitter, because to those who love much, much is forgiven.  Fielding had no occasion to make Blifil, behind his decent coat, a traitor and a hypocrite.  It would have been enough to have coloured him in and out alike in the steady hues of selfishness, afraid of offending the upper powers as he was afraid of offending Allworthy,—­not from any love for what was good, but solely because it would be imprudent—­because the pleasure to be gained was not worth the risk of consequences.  Such a Blifil would have answered the novelist’s purpose—­he would still have been a worse man in the estimation of some of us than Tom Jones.