[32]
But of the three above-named requisites, let us1
look first at good-will and the rules for securing it.
Good-will is won principally through kind services2;
next to that, it is elicited by the will to do a kind
service, even though nothing happen to come of it.
Then, too, the love of people generally is powerfully
attracted by a man's mere name and reputation for
generosity, kindness, justice, honour, and all those
virtues that belong to gentleness of character and
affability of manner. And because that very quality
which we term moral goodness and propriety is
pleasing to us by and of itself and touches all our
hearts both by its inward essence and its outward
aspect and shines forth with most lustre through
those virtues named above, we are, therefore, compelled by Nature herself to love those in whom we
believe those virtues to reside. Now these are only
the most powerful motives to love—not all of them;
there may be some minor ones besides.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.