an opponent, must be something more real than a hair-splitting sophism or an a priori soap-bubble. In war the first thing to be done is to know the enemy well; and in the shock of battle, now impending, Egoism, as the chief combatant on its own side, is best set against the virtue of Justice, which, in my opinion, is the first and original cardinal virtue.

The virtue of loving-kindness, on the other hand, is rather to be matched with ill-will, or spitefulness, the origin and successive stages of which we will now consider. Ill-will, in its lower degrees, is very frequent, indeed, almost a common thing; and it easily rises in the scale. Goethe is assuredly right when he says that in this world indifference and aversion are quite at home. — (Wahlverwandtschaften, Part I., chap. 3.) It is very fortunate for us