CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY 141 



of moral character. The same distinction holds good here 

 as when the conduct is self-regarding. In one case the 

 action itself is the final end ; in the other a mental state such 

 as pleasure which accompanies or follows the action. 



Neither the conscience itself nor its modes of reaction 

 are exclusively the products of the individual s educa 

 tion or of his environment. The rudiments or predisposi 

 tions at least are inherited. It is true that the experience 

 through which a man passes will materially modify the 

 development of his moral constitution, but it can establish 

 nothing of which the germ was not already present at birth. 

 If we can imagine two individuals of exactly the same 

 inherited moral character (and by this I mean that the 

 conscience of each will react in the same direction, and with 

 equal strength at the idea of the same actions) and expose 

 them to entirely different trainings, bringing one up in an 

 Indian village, and another in Mayfair, the finished products 

 would differ so greatly that we should find it hard to believe 

 that both were derived from exactly similar stocks. But 

 if the process were reversed, and two men of different natural 

 characters were submitted to exactly the same training, 

 in the same surroundings, the result would not be exact 

 similarity in the finished products. The conscience resem 

 bles the human brain, and indeed all the later products of 

 evolution, in being extremely variable, and no two men 

 are born exactly alike. Within the same society, and under 

 almost identical conditions of training, we find the widest 

 diversities of character. The strongest reactions of which 

 their conscience is capable will be excited in some men by 

 fraud and treachery, in others by cruelty and injustice, 

 in others by sexual delinquencies. Many will be found 

 who are quite indifferent to whole classes of immoral acts, 

 who, for example, instead of being repelled, are amused 

 by successful trickery and lies. Still greater is the diversity 

 in the readiness and strength of its manifestations. With 

 some men it is disturbed on every trifling occasion, and hardly 

 ever sleeps ; with others, though strong when it is once 

 aroused, it is unready and does not, perhaps, make itself 



