For, though men uniting
into politic societies, have resigned up to the public the disposing
of all their force, so that they cannot employ it against any
fellow-citizens any further than the law of the country directs: yet
they retain still the power of thinking well or ill, approving or
disapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst, and
converse with: and by this approbation and dislike they establish
amongst themselves what they will call virtue and vice.
11. The measure that men commonly apply to determine what they
call virtue and vice. That this is the common measure of virtue and
vice, will appear to any one who considers, that, though that passes
for vice in one country which is counted a virtue, or at least not
vice, in another, yet everywhere virtue and praise, vice and blame, go
together. Virtue is everywhere, that which is thought praiseworthy;
and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem
is called virtue. Virtue and praise are so united, that they are
called often by the same name. Sunt sua praemia laudi, says Virgil;
and so Cicero, Nihil habet natura praestantius, quam honestatem,
quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus, which he tells you are all
names for the same thing. This is the language of the heathen
philosophers, who well understood wherein their notions of virtue
and vice consisted.
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