its expression. Temperance or self-control would be meaningless if man had no unruly desires and inclinations to restrain.
Every age must construct its virtues for itself. In every age character must react in new ways to the difficulties of the situations which face it. The moral life is not stationary. It is a constant progress, and the virtues in which it is expressed necessarily alter from time to time. The virtues required in one age are not those whose activity is most valuable in another. Thus we find that the precise meaning of the four cardinal virtues changes from age to age. Virtues are relative to the society in which they are displayed. The interpretation which we give to the cardinal virtues to-day differs from that which they bore in Plato's time. Yet they are fundamentally the same aspects of goodness.
The cardinal virtues are closely connected with the idea of vocation. All without exception are involved in loyalty to vocation. It might perhaps be said that while wisdom and justice are chiefly concerned with the choice of vocation, courage and temperance are mainly displayed in the process of devotion to it. But such a distinction is only a relative one, for the choice of vocation may require real courage and self-control, and wisdom and justice are constantly called for in the actual progress of the moral life.
§ 3. Courage. Courage is probably the first virtue to appear in the childhood of the individual and the race. The first definite quality which character develops is courage. The child and the savage learn to be brave, to bear pain and dis-
