Moral System
Section 2 - XII.
The principle of moral perfection
181. If however the principle of perfection is determined and restricted solely to moral perfection, it approximates to our principle of truth. Moral perfection does not result from a subjective way of considering ourselves but from the objects we know and acknowledge, objects which we love rightly and treat according to right love. The weakness of the principle of moral perfection is that our attention stops at the effect rather than at the essence of morality, which is what we are seeking.
182. Another weakness is that it does not include the whole of virtue but only the more perfect part of it, that is, goodness. Our principle, on the contrary, in addition to manifesting more clearly the disinterestedness of the upright person, includes both goodness and justice. The latter is the foundation and the substance, as it were, of the former; the former is the perfection of the latter.