Page 108 - erewhon

continued by the student until he finds that he really can
subdue all the more usual vices in his own person, and
hence can advise his patients from the results of his own
experience.
Those who intend to be specialists, rather than general
practitioners, devote themselves more particularly to the
branch in which their practice will mainly lie. Some stu-
dents have been obliged to continue their exercises during
their whole lives, and some devoted men have actually died
as martyrs to the drink, or gluttony, or whatever branch
of vice they may have chosen for their especial study. The
greater number, however, take no harm by the excursions
into the various departments of vice which it is incumbent
upon them to study.
For the Erewhonians hold that unalloyed virtue is not a
thing to be immoderately indulged in. I was shown more
than one case in which the real or supposed virtues of par-
ents were visited upon the children to the third and fourth
generation. The straighteners say that the most that can be
truly said for virtue is that there is a considerable balance in
its favour, and that it is on the whole a good deal better to be
on its side than against it; but they urge that there is much
pseudo-virtue going about, which is apt to let people in very
badly before they find it out. Those men, they say, are best
who are not remarkable either for vice or virtue. I told them
about Hogarth’s idle and industrious apprentices, but they
did not seem to think that the industrious apprentice was a
very nice person.

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