habit, has not yet attained to it; he is, in fact, a voluptuary still, for satisfaction does not accompany the practice of his temperance; and this, according to Aristotle, is the test of virtue, the test which proves whether temperance, or whatever the virtue may be, has truly been attained to or not. In short, if a man has no pleasure in his temperance, such temperance does not deserve the name of virtue. With this doctrine we may agree so far, I think, as to admit that the test which Aristotle lays down is indeed the criterion of the very highest virtue; in other words, that virtue of the most perfect kind always affords pleasure to him who practises it, and that unless it does this it cannot be of the highest order. At the same time, I think it would be unfair to refuse the name of virtuous to that disposition which, in the performance of virtuous actions, could not feel much pleasure, but, on the contrary, felt that some degree of self-sacrifice was involved in their performance. Such a restriction would, I think, be unfair; because such a disposition, though its virtue may not be altogether perfect, may nevertheless be very noble and magnanimous, and an object of our approbation all the more on account of the sacrifice which it is undergoing in the practice of virtue.
52. I believe that Aristotle himself would not have withheld the name of virtuous in a restricted sense to a mind which was struggling to be virtuous, but whose efforts were still accompanied by some degree
