THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



recognize as disease or insanity, but such as in whom 

 a moral distortion occurs. As the insane show their 

 mental disease by their inability to reason rightly, so 

 these latter show their moral disease in their inca- 

 pacity to act rightly. Such traits are often the direct 

 inheritance from their parents; often, though, they 

 come from far off ancestors, and appear, as it were, 

 sporadically in one member of a family only, in which 

 neither parents nor the other children manifest such . 

 faults. The form in which it oftenest appears is the 

 partial or total absence of the sense of Duty ; of that 

 feeling of obligation that impels its possessor to a 

 given action or rule of conduct because he ought to 

 do so, not merely for the sake of gain, from the de- 

 sire for pleasure, or to please others. This feeling of 

 duty can be made stronger or kept alive by practice, 

 or it may be allowed to die out by neglect. With 

 some persons it seems never to have existed, nor can 

 it be made to grow anew. It is nearly identical with 

 what is known as conscience. To those born with it, 

 to have done wrong is to suffer painfully. To 

 those who have it not, it is only chance or oppor- 

 tunity that makes them or keeps them from being 

 criminals. 



Another inheritance from atavism is that condition 

 which expresses itself as over-selfishness. In the 

 stages of man's early life, self-preservation and the 

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