Note 367 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.
Reading edition
unprincipled in virtue’s book, i.e. ignorant of the elements of virtue. A principle (Lat. principium, beginning) is a fundamental truth; hence the current sense of ‘unprincipled,’ implying that the man who has no fixed rules of life is the one who will readily fall into evil. Comp. Sams. Agon. 760, “wisest and best men ... with goodness principled.”