Virtue is at least a means of happiness, though apart from that it is no good in itself, any more than mere sensual enjoyments, which are good only because they may sometimes serve to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind.
He was rescued at last from this monkish idleness by his inborn genius, which, not being able to give free vent to its poetical inspirations under the crushing weight of bigotry, claimed a greater share in the legitimate enjoyments of life and the appreciation of the beauties of nature, as well as a more enlightened faith of tolerance, benevolence, and liberality.
If the traditional derivation is correct, the name is derived from the Welsh afal, an apple, and, as no other large fruit was well known to the races of northern Europe, is probably intended to symbolize the feasting and enjoyments of elysium.
It need not, therefore, surprise us that the man who formulated the sum of virtue in justice and benevolence was unable to be just to his own kinsfolk and reserved his compassion largely for the brutes, and that the delineator of asceticism was more than moderately sensible of the comforts and enjoyments of life.
This " pleasurable good-will," when the moral judgment relates to a man's own actions, becomes " the testimony of a good conscience - the purest and most valuable of all human enjoyments."
