the analogy would make that Principle identical with virtue, whereas
we hold it to be something higher.

    The objection would be valid if what the soul takes in were one
and the same with the source, but in fact virtue is one thing, the
source of virtue quite another. The material house is not identical
with the house conceived in the intellect, and yet stands in its
likeness: the material house has distribution and order while the pure
idea is not constituted by any such elements; distribution, order,
symmetry are not parts of an idea.

    So with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and
distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the
Existences There, having no need of harmony, order or distribution,
have nothing to do with virtue; and, none the less, it is by our
possession of virtue that we become like to Them.

    Thus much to show that the principle that we attain Likeness by
virtue in no way involves the existence of virtue in the Supreme.
But we have not merely to make a formal demonstration: we must
persuade as well as demonstrate.

    2. First, then, let us examine those good qualities by which we
hold Likeness comes, and seek to establish what is this thing which,
as we possess it, in transcription, is virtue but as the Supreme
possesses it, is in the nature of an exemplar or archetype and is
not virtue.

    We must first distinguish two modes of Likeness.

    There is the likeness demanding an identical nature in the objects
which, further, must draw their likeness from a common principle:
and there is the case in which B resembles A, but A is a Primal, not
concerned about B and not said to resemble B. In this second case,
likeness is understood in a distinct sense: we no longer look for
identity of nature, but, on the contrary, for divergence since the
likeness has come about by the mode of difference.

    What, then, precisely is Virtue, collectively and in the
particular? The clearer method will be to begin with the particular,
for so the common element by which all the forms hold the general name
will readily appear.

    The Civic Virtues, on which we have touched above, are a principle
or order and beauty in us as long as we remain passing our life
here: they ennoble us by setting bound and measure to our desires
and to our entire sensibility, and dispelling false judgement- and
this by sheer efficacy of the better, by the very setting of the
bounds, by the fact that the measured is lifted outside of the
sphere of the unmeasured and lawless.

    And, further, these Civic Virtues- measured and ordered themselves
and acting as a principle of measure to the Soul which is as Matter to
their forming- are like to the measure reigning in the over-world, and
they carry a trace of that Highest Good in the Supreme; for, while
utter measurelessness is brute Matter and wholly outside of
Likeness, any participation in Ideal-Form produces some
corresponding degree of Likeness to the formless Being There. And
participation goes by nearness: the Soul nearer than the body,
therefore closer akin, participates more fully and shows a godlike
presence, almost cheating us into the delusion that in the Soul we see
God entire.

    This is the way in which men of the Civic Virtues attain Likeness.

    3. We come now to that other mode of Likeness which, we read, is
the fruit of the loftier virtues: discussing this we shall penetrate
more deeply into the essence of the Civic Virtue and be able to define
the nature of the higher kind whose existence we shall establish
beyond doubt.

    To Plato, unmistakably, there are two distinct orders of virtue,
and the civic does not suffice for Likeness: "Likeness to God," he
says, "is a flight from this world's ways and things": in dealing with
the qualities of good citizenship he does not use the simple term
Virtue but adds the distinguishing word civic: and elsewhere he
declares all the virtues without exception to be purifications.

    But in what sense can we call the virtues purifications, and how
does purification issue in Likeness?

    As the Soul is evil by being interfused with the body, and by
coming to share the body's states and to think the body's thoughts, so
it would be good, it would be possessed of virtue, if it threw off the
body's moods and devoted itself to its own Act- the state of
Intellection and Wisdom- never allowed the passions of the body to
affect it- the virtue of Sophrosyne- knew no fear at the parting
from the body- the virtue of Fortitude- and if reason and the
Intellectual-Principle ruled- in which state is Righteousness. Such
a disposition in the Soul, become thus intellective and immune to
passion, it would not be wrong to call Likeness to God; for the
Divine, too, is pure and the Divine-Act is such that Likeness to it is
Wisdom.

    But would not this make virtue a state of the Divine also?

    No: the Divine has no states; the state is in the Soul. The Act of
Intellection in the Soul is not the same as in the Divine: of things
in the Supreme, Soul grasps some after a mode of its own, some not
at all.