Morals as a Factor in Organic Evolution 673 



In view of the above considerations, the relation of morals 

 to each individual might be regarded as the resultant of the 

 sum totals of cognito-cogitic stimuli, that are collected by 

 each individual in his or her life, or by instruction from others, 

 and that are started by a sense of, and are expended for, the 

 common or social satisfaction or good. 



According to the above, and to the definition already given 

 in the widest sense of morals (p. 660), conscience might be 

 defined as the stored or static resultant of the sum totals of all 

 the moral acts or teachings in the life of one individual, that 

 are cumulated from direct experience, or by instruction from 

 others, and that directs the individual how to respond most satis- 

 factorily under varying social stimidi. 



It follows therefore that each moral act represents a distinct 

 mental (cogitic) state, that is started by one or more sensory 

 or cognitic stimuli, and which from previous oft-repeated 

 like mental states becomes, through expenditure of cogitic 

 energy, a response that conduces toward well-being of the 

 social whole. Conscience is the summated mental store of 

 all the moral stimuli that are cumulated for future guidance 

 of an individual in connection with the social whole. Morals 

 therefore represent a set of distinct mental conditions, each 

 of which is common to, and shared by, members of a community 

 or organization, all of whom accept, and are guided by, these 

 in their relation to each other. Conscience is the unified 

 aggregate of all the distinct moral acts which have been pre- 

 sented to and accepted by each individual of a social whole 

 during his life, and which is used only by that individual for 

 placing him in harmony with the social whole. 



So if we think of a Robinson Crusoe he might perform many 

 mental acts conducive to or satisfying his mental life, and 

 which might even advance it in complex condition, but if 

 cast as a babe on a lone island and supposed capable of nour- 

 ishing himself to manhood his moral nature would remain 

 unawakened. His religious nature however might, in part 

 from hereditary lines of ready stinuilation, attain to fair growtli, 

 so that he might reverence the forces of nature around and 



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