Note 21 — Chapter I

Some moralists have also established a third class of actions, which they call indifferent, as belonging neither to virtue nor to vice; and hence there arose the famous doctrine of probability, set up by several eminent Romish casuists, and hotly attacked by Pascal. But this, if we put aside its worst feature, namely its practical bearings, is merely a question of definition; inasmuch as every indifferent act must lean on the side either of evil or of good, and may therefore be referred to the category to which it inclines; and certainly every increase of vice diminishes virtue relatively, though not always absolutely. Among the Greek philosophers there was a schism on this point: Ἁρέσκει δὲ αὐτοὶς (i.e. the Stoics) μηδὲν μέσον εἶναι ἀρετῆς και κακίας⋅ τῶν περιπατητκῶν μεταξὺ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας εἶναι λεγόντων τὴν προκοπήν. Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philosophorum, lib. vii. segm. 127, vol. i. p. 445.