CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY 155 



virtuous motives, and benevolence, in particular, has much 

 to answer for, but the superior value of a knowledge of 

 motives is so great that the principle, actus non facit reum 

 nisi mens sit rea, has been generally accepted. The 

 emperor, che sotto buon intenzion fe mal frutto x was 

 not excluded from his throne in Paradise. There are some 

 exceptions : breaches of the seventh commandment, suicide, 

 atheism, treason against the state, if condemned at all, 

 are condemned unconditionally as acts, but there are not 

 many in this class. On the other hand, killing is not murder 

 without a bad motive, nor an untrue statement a lie without 

 the intention to deceive, nor the ruin of a trusting friend 

 treachery unless there is the intent to injure ; and the list 

 is endless. In systematic treatises on ethics this is some 

 times overlooked ; but some confusion is always introduced 

 if moral judgements are classified by the acts to which they 

 refer, and not by the motives. We are told, for instance, 

 by a leading authority on ethics, that it is not clear that 

 gratitude and humility are virtues, because it is diffi 

 cult to distinguish the acts in which they result. With 

 these two, surely, the virtue lies altogether in the mental 

 disposition. 



The prophylactic efficiency of the moral judgements is 

 greatly enhanced in another way by their diversion from 

 the act to the intention. When we condemn motives that 

 produce evil actions, we take up the position which is best 

 adapted to prevent the occurrence of those actions. We 

 check evil at its source ; and prevention is better than 

 punishment both for society and for the individual himself. 

 The same motive, moreover, in the same individual, may 

 be the cause of many actions of the same kind, and by 

 restraining that we may prevent an unknown number of 

 occasions for punishment, and an unknown amount of 

 mischief to the community. 



Finally, the collective morality excels the individual 

 conscience in having fewer gaps. The imperfections of 

 the individual conscience in this respect have already been 

 1 Dante, Paradiso, xx. 56. 



