In short, virtue has this great advantage, that it finds its happiness in a kind of respect for the rights and claims of the different members of the community, and that all its sentiments seem to unite themselves to the general harmony. The passions, on the contrary, are almost always hostile; the vain man desires that others should grace his triumphs; the proud wishes them to feel their inferiority; the ambitious, that they keep clear of his pursuit; the imperious, that they bend to him. It is the same of the different competitions, which an excessive love of praise, high reputation, or fortune, gives birth to; in the path they choose every one would wish to go alone, or advance before all the rest, and occupied about their own interest, they clash inconsiderately with those of others. Virtue, very different in following its course, fears neither rivals nor competitors; it does not jostle with any one, the road is spacious, and all may walk at their ease; it is an orderly alliance, of which morality is the knot, drawing together, by the same motives and hopes held in common, that chain of duties and sentiments which unite the virtues of men to the ideal model of all perfection. Virtue, which guards us from the snares of our senses, and checks our blind desires, is besides the basis of the most precious wisdom; but it is not the interest of a day, or the pleasures of a moment, that it protects, it is the whole of life, that it takes under its superintendency; it is, to speak metaphorically, the vindicator of futurity, the representative of duration, and becomes, to the feelings, what foresight is to the mind. We must then, with respect to private manners, consider virtue as a prudent friend, taught by the experience of all ages, who directs our steps, and never lets the flambeau waver, whose salutary light ought to guide them. Our tumultuous passions dispute the honour of partaking the government: it is necessary a master should assign to each its proper limits, one who can keep in peace all these petty domestic tyrants; which reminds us of the image of Ulysses, arriving suddenly in the midst of the hundred kings who had taken possession of his palace. Virtue, some will say, severe in its judgments, and austere in its forms, would it not deprive us of the greatest happiness, the pleasure of being beloved? I reply, that virtue, in its most improved state, has not this character; I represent it to myself as a just sentiment of order, far from banishing all other comforts, it leads to them: thus, benevolence and forbearance, which agree so well with human weakness; the social spirit so consistent with our nature; urbanity in discourse and manner; that amiable expression of a heart, which seeks to unite itself with others; all these qualities, very far from being strangers to virtue, are its attendants and brightest ornament.