The Virtues and Their Relations

In ancient Latin, vir (man) became virtu (man-strength, and then the strength or power of anything – as in “the virtue of magnesium in aiding sleep”), which then became, in English, virtue (the power of what is good in itself to effect even greater goodness).

It is true that the older one becomes, the truer the great truths of life become.  Those great truths usually congregate under the rubric of The Classic Virtues, because Truth and Virtue share an umbilical relationship of shared genetic material.  Truth may be Beauty, as Keats famously avers, but it is also (more importantly) a virtue that – like Courage – makes all other virtues possible.  Without it, any display of ethics is merely meretricious.

Honesty, the smiling fair-faced offspring of Truth, is always going to be honored, surreptitiously if not overtly.  And that goes for all the other primary virtues as well: nobility of conduct, and nobility of conception, for instance, will forever raise in the beholder a sensation that elevates and pleases.  Honor itself is always honored — openly by the disingenuous, and either grudgingly or covertly by the duplicitous.

Truthfulness, another word for Honesty, is just as lovely, of course, and if I am perceptive enough in these matters I am going to perceive that honesty requires a fair measure of the courage I admired in the hero.  It takes bravery to speak and live the truth in all circumstances, in every facet and aspect of life.  It is the stalwart man or woman who declares in speech or act what is objectively true.  The one virtue supports and reinforces the other.  It is in the nature of good things to come to the aid of other good things, just as good people rush to the assistance of other good people.  If a lie is the handle that fits all vices, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr says, then courage is the helpmeet of all virtues, and is, in fact, indispensable to them all.

Now, concerning Courage.  It will always be celebrated by the individuals who benefit from the valor of others.  If I have been rescued, at great personal risk of harm on the part of the one doing the rescuing, then I am obviously going to be impressed by the bravery of the rescuer.  I am going to realize that courage is a beautiful thing in and of itself – not just because I survived as a result of it – but because there was something in the act of valor itself that triggered and awakened my esthetic and moral sense to a great extent.  I am going to see that courage is derived from the word for heart – that courage comes from the heartiness and heartfeltness and heart-centeredness of the beautiful person who has saved me.

Devotion and Loyalty to the one you are responsible for, as well as his or her offspring – will always create in people who witness it a feeling of admiration; however, that feeling is hedged about with conflicting or dissonant sensations.  As human beings, we are built to respond positively to other humans who are protecting their mates, their children, and their parents. 

Then there is what in the past was known as Chastity – not virginity or abstinence, but irreproachable sexual behavior within one’s current circumstances, whether married or single.  A life of abstention from sex, making oneself a “eunuch for the Kingdom of God”, falls within the purview of the term.   Sexual faithfulness to one’s spouse is chastity as well.  Chastity bears the same relation to sexuality that Piety does to religion: a correct, prescribed, faultless adherence to the most basic “rules of conduct”, either in sexual matters or religion.  If blasphemy is understood to be antithetical to one’s faith, then blasphemy stands self-condemned.  If adultery is agreed to be – by definition — illicit in marriage, then we know it to be a violation of the wedded state.

Another classic virtue (again, little talked about in our day) is Moderation, or Temperance.  The latter term has often been confused with abstinence, thanks to its association with the various Prohibition movements of the early twentieth century.  But temperance is concerned not with abstaining from, but with moderating the use of.  It’s Aristotle’s Golden Mean in all things.  Extremes are insidious, it has always been thought, largely because they vitiate Reason, and tie a blindfold around the eyes of Prudence – another ancient Virtue referring to the ability to foresee the needs of the future, and to initiate measures needed to meet them.

Loyalty we have touched upon, in the context of marital fidelity, but its value is much more all-encompassing.  We see its golden qualities in friendship, where faithfulness to a friend is – or should be – gorgeous in the eyes of all people (remembering the derivation of gorgeous from gorge, or valley, referring to the beautiful and elegant valleys and indentations of the ruffles worn about the necks of highly refined persons in the past).  Loyalty, and all the Classic Virtues, share in this elegant and eternally lovely beauty, because they are ultimately and forever dependable.  You can rely on them.  They do not give way under pressure, and they are transmuted only to become less than what they were before.  The older you become, the more you perceive this to be a heartwarming and comforting truth.