" With the former,
Prudence was equivalent to morality; with the latter, who chose a
higher designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.
While we must admire the men who in such early times tried all
imaginable ways of extending the domain of philosophy, we must at
the same time lament that their acuteness was unfortunately misapplied
in trying to trace out identity between two extremely heterogeneous
notions, those of happiness and virtue. But it agrees with the
dialectical spirit of their times (and subtle minds are even now
sometimes misled in the same way) to get rid of irreconcilable
differences in principle by seeking to change them into a mere contest
about words, and thus apparently working out the identity of the
notion under different names, and this usually occurs in cases where
the combination of heterogeneous principles lies so deep or so high,
or would require so complete a transformation of the doctrines assumed
in the rest of the philosophical system, that men are afraid to
penetrate deeply into the real difference and prefer treating it as
a difference in questions of form.
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