trouble; they do not shift on to shoulders not their own, by force or
by trickery, the burdens and sorrows of life, which circumstances bring
to every one; they prefer to bear themselves the portions allotted
to them, so as not to double those of their neighbours. For although
generalising formulae, and abstract knowledge of whatever kind, are
not in the least the cause, or the real basis of morality; these are
nevertheless indispensable for a moral course of life. They are the
cistern or reservoir, in which the habit of mind, that springs from
the fount of all morality (a fount not at all moments flowing), may
be stored up, thence to be drawn off, as occasion requires. There is
thus an analogy between things moral and things physiological; among
many instances of which we need only mention that of the gall-bladder,
which is used for keeping the secretion of the liver. Without
firmly held principles we should inevitably be at the mercy of the
antimoral incentives, directly they are roused to activity by external
influences; and =self-control= lies precisely in steadfast
adherence and obedience to such principles, despite the motives which
oppose them.
In general, the feminine half of humanity is inferior to the
masculine in the virtue of justice, and its derivatives, uprightness,
conscientiousness, etc.; the explanation is found in the fact that,
owing to the weakness of its reasoning powers the former is much less
capable than the latter of understanding and holding to general laws,
and of taking them as a guiding thread. Hence injustice and falseness
are women's besetting sins, and lies their proper element. On the
other hand, they surpass men in the virtue of loving-kindness; because
usually the stimulus to this is =intuitive=, and consequently
appeals directly to the sense of Compassion, of which females are
much more susceptible than males. For the former nothing but what
is intuitive, present, and immediately real has a true existence;
that which is knowable only by means of concepts, as for instance,
the absent, the distant, the past, the future, they do not readily
grasp. We thus find compensation here, as in so much else; justice
is more the masculine, loving-kindness more the feminine virtue.
The mere idea of seeing women sitting on the judges' bench raises a
smile; but the sisters of mercy far excel the brothers of charity.
Now animals, as they have no power of gaining knowledge by reason,
that is, of forming abstract ideas, are entirely incapable of fixed
resolutions, to say nothing of principles; they consequently totally
lack =self-control=, and are helplessly given over to external
impressions and internal impulses. This is why they have no conscious
morality; although the different species show great contrasts of good
and evil in their characters, and as regards the highest races these
are traceable even in individuals.