Touchstone's escape clause becomes a moral condition
Touchstone talked of much virtue in an "if"; according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an "if."
Touchstone's words come from As You Like It, 5.4.100–107. Explaining how gentlemen can avoid fighting even after a direct accusation of lying, he describes opponents who turn their assertions into conditional statements and become friends. His conclusion is: “Your ‘if’ is the only peacemaker: much virtue in ‘if.’” The wording here follows the modern Folger online text, updated July 31, 2015; the play was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. Text and scene; publication history.
Chesterton accurately recalls the speaker and the phrase, but deliberately changes their application. Touchstone's conditional softens an assertion and releases people from a quarrel; Chesterton's conditional binds a recipient to the terms of a gift. “Virtue” moves from the useful power of a verbal device toward moral goodness. Shakespeare supplies the comic hinge, not an independent argument that every prohibition deserves obedience.
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