Moreover, by placing morality in activity and not in some thing, or in conformity to an external law, Christianity changed the nature of the struggle. While the old struggle had been an effort to get away from evil to a good beyond, Christianity made the struggle itself a good. It, then, was no longer the effort to escape to some fixed, unchanging state; the constant onward movement was itself the goal. Virtue, as Hegel says, is the battle, the struggle, carried to its full.
4. _The conception of merit._ This is, essentially, the idea of social desert--the idea that an agent deserves well of others on account of his act or his character. An action evokes two kinds of judgments: first, that the act is right or virtuous, that it fulfills duty. This judgment may be passed by any one; as well by the agent as by any one else. It is simply the recognition of the moral character of the act. But a right act may also awaken a conviction of desert; that the act is one which furthers the needs of society, and thus is meritorious.
_This_ is _not_ a judgment which the agent can pass upon his own act. Virtue and duty are strictly coextensive; no act can be so virtuous, so right, as to go beyond meeting the demands of the situation. Everything is a duty which needs to be done in a given situation; the doing of what needs to be done is right or virtuous. While the agent may and must approve of right action in himself, he cannot claim desert or reward because of its virtuousness; he simply does what he should.
Others, however, may see that the act has been done in the face of great temptation; after a hard struggle; that it denotes some unusual qualification or executes some remarkable service. It is not only right, but obligatory, for others to take due notice of these qualities, of these deeds. Such notice is as requisite as it is to show gratitude for generosity, or forgiveness to a repentant man.
Two errors are to be avoided here; both arising from the identification of merit with virtue. One view holds that the virtue and merit consist in doing something over and above duty. There is a minimum of action which is obligatory; to perform this, since it is obligatory, is no virtue. Anything above this is virtuous. The other view reverses this and holds that since no man can do more than he ought, there is no such thing as merit. Great excellence or heroism in one man is no more meritorious than ordinary conduct in another; since the one man is naturally more gifted than the other. But while one act is no more right or virtuous than another, it may be more meritorious, because contributing more to moral welfare or progress. To depreciate the meritorious deed is a sign of a carping, a grudging or a mean spirit.