The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood.
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![VERBAL— still differ as to the application of one of them to the other, then it may he pronounced that the question is real—that they differ as to the opinions they hold of the things or questions.”—Whately. VIRTUAL is opposed to actual. A thing has a virtual existence when it has all the condi- tions necessary to its actual existence. The statue exists virtually in the brass or iron, the oak in the acorn. The cause virtually contains the effect. In the philosophy of Aristotle, the distinction between ovv*fu;, and ivri'Ke)$««, or hioyua. i.e., potentia or virtue, and actus is frequent and fundamental. “ A letter of credit does not in reality contain the sum which it represents: that sum is only really in the coffer of the banker. Yet the letter contains the sum in a certain sense, since it holds its place. This sum is in still another sense, contained; it is virtually in the credit of the banker who subscribes the letter. To express these differences in the language of Descartes, the sum is contained formally in the coffer of the banker, objectively in the letter which he subscribed, and eminently in the credit which enabled him to subscribe ; and thus the coffer contains the reality formal of the sum, the letter the reality objective, and the credit of the banker the reality eminent.”—Royer Collard, CEuvres de Reid, tom. ii. p. 356. VIRTUE.—[1. An act which is in harmony with moral law. 2. A disposition harmonizing with a special form of moral law, and which has the force of fixed habit.—Ed.] “ Virtue, in Latin, from vir, a man, and dnirr, in Greek, from A nr, Mars, give us the primary idea of manly strength. Virtue, then, implies opposition or struggle. In man, the struggle is between reason and passion—between right and wrong. To hold by the former is virtue, to yield to the latter is vice. According to Aristotle, virtue is a practical habit acquired by doing virtuous acts. He called those virtues intellectual, by which the intellect was strengthened, and moral, by which the life was regulated. Another ancient division was that of the cardinal virtues—icisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. The theological virtues were faith, hope. and charity.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2199531x_0530.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
