We don’t use the word anymore. It’s fallen from our modern lexicon and with it the idea has disappeared from our minds. To speak the word sounds somewhat quaint and possibly even quixotic. Try using it in conversation and watch the eyebrows raise around you. The word we have lost is “virtue.”

Webster’s defines virtue as, “a good or admirable quality” and, “conformity of one's life and conduct to moral and ethical principles.” Virtue was a word and an idea as prominent in the founding generation as it is absent today. Those men did not just talk about virtues; they pursued them, watched for them and worked to develop them. As a young man, Benjamin Franklin actually wrote out a list of virtues he hoped to attain. As an adult he kept a small book that listed these virtues, and he marked his daily successes and failures in keeping to them. In a similar fashion, 13-year-old George Washington copied a book of rules of civility that he used as a guide to better himself. Wisdom and virtue were things to be gained in the minds of their generation, and great persons were those who exhibited great virtues.

 

This was the Age of Reason, when the prevailing belief was that all problems could be solved through rational thought. Men believed that greatness was achievable if only one studied the great virtues and incorporated them into daily life. This idea stood in contrast to centuries of thinking that one could not expect to rise above the station to which he was born. It’s from this Reason Revolution that America became a nation of dreamers and achievers. The idea that a person could better himself, do great works and prosper was the American dream before there was even an American nation.

So what happened? Where did the value of virtue go?  Simple--we lost virtue when we lost reason. We no longer live in an age of reason. In fact, we have torn down reason and replaced it with the philosophies of evolution and relativity. Understand that I am not attacking the scientific theories of evolution or relativity, but the general popular philosophies they have generated. In popular thinking we are all “evolving,” and so we must be getting better. We don’t actually have to try to get better; we are all being pulled along and improving through an act of nature without any effort of our own. And since everything is “relative” we need make no judgment calls on what is good or bad or right or wrong. These delightful philosophies eliminate the need to actively change or to pursue virtues. We can sit back, relax, and watch ourselves improve.

 Often I am asked what made the Founding Generation great.  My answer is, “The pursuit of virtue and the belief that they could become great.” I’m not saying that anyone in the era was perfect; they were full of the same insecurities, vanities and jealousies that we all have today.  What made the difference was that they tried to overcome their faults by developing virtue.

Abigail Adams once wrote,

 “Great necessities call out great virtues.”

But can we expect to call out great virtues in our current times of great necessity when we have forgotten what virtues are? Many of the founders believed the very survival of the country depended on it’s becoming a virtuous nation. Listen to the words of the Founders regarding the value of virtue: