And if he had
observed that in the place he quotes I only report as a matter of fact
what others call virtue and vice, he would not have found it liable to
any great exception. For I think I am not much out in saying that
one of the rules made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a
moral relation is- that esteem and reputation which several sorts of
actions find variously in the several societies of men, according to
which they are there called virtues or vices. And whatever authority
the learned Mr. Lowde places in his Old English Dictionary, I
daresay it nowhere tells him (if I should appeal to it) that the
same action is not in credit, called and counted a virtue, in one
place, which, being in disrepute, passes for and under the name of
vice in another. The taking notice that men bestow the names of
"virtue" and "vice" according to this rule of Reputation is all I have
done, or can be laid to my charge to have done, towards the making
vice virtue or virtue vice. But the good man does well, and as becomes
his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm even
at expressions, which, standing alone by themselves, might sound ill
and be suspected.
'Tis to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his
citing as he does these words of mine (ch. xxviii. sect.
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