simplest, and the most fundamental law of morality. True and sincere love delights in God for what he is, for his beauty and perfection, and has its origin in the likeness of divine life implanted in the soul. This love is intellectual,[1] and belongs to the highest part of the mind. There are two ways in which intellectual love of God unifies moral truth. In the first place, to follow God is to follow what is simply and absolutely best; in other words, to attain the highest virtue.[2] Whoever has it will possess all the virtues, whether they concern duties to self, to others, or to God.[3] Secondly, since this is true, it is easy to show that the moral noemata may all be resolved into love of God. He who loves God necessarily appreciates and acts upon them all. There are two other principles which have been advanced by those who desire to unify moral truth; namely, sociality and zeal for the public good. Both suppose that human nature cannot attain perfection and happiness apart from society, and imply that ethics and politics are the same. This is as absurd as it would be to assert that a people, believing that bodily health was desirable, should turn all their energies to sociality and zeal for public health, should build hospitals and appoint physicians, and at the same time neglect the physical well-being of the individual.
Of these three principles, it is natural enough that More should have preferred the love of God; such a choice was most in agreement with his general mode of thought. His mistake is that he believed love of God to be exclusive of the other two. This failure to recognize the distinction between the two kinds of principles was shared by other ethical writers, even by some who were later than More. In fact, there is a little more excuse for our author than for the others. They tried to find the very essence of morality, while More took good and evil for granted. What he was concerned to show was that in obedience to one law all the others were observed. As in so many other places, his point of view was the practical one.
