EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



if all the secrets of society could be laid open 

 for inspection, we should perhaps marvel at the 

 amount of unhappiness which is traceable directly 

 or indirectly to this cause. Yet the reckless as- 

 sumption of pecuniary obligations does not or- 

 dinarily originate in dishonesty of intention. 

 There can be no doubt that it ordinarily origi- 

 nates in mental incapacity to form a distinct 

 and accurate conception of the future results of 

 to-day's actions, cooperating with that comfort- 

 able assurance that things will somehow or other 

 come out right, which nearly all men persist in 

 cherishing. The lazy belief that in some un- 

 specified way things will so adjust themselves as 

 to prevent the natural consequences of a wrong 

 or foolish act, is a very common fallacy, upon 

 which George Eliot is especially fond of com- 

 menting. This belief, which is responsible for 

 so much imprudence and for so much crime, is 

 itself the product of defects that are partly intel- 

 lectual and partly moral. It arises partly from 

 a slothfulness of temper which shrinks from the 

 discomfort of dealing with unpleasant facts, and 

 partly from inability to think out complicated 

 relations of cause and effect. Thus deeply and 

 widely inwrought with every phase of the moral 

 power of resisting temptation is that purely in- 

 tellectual power which we may call " represent- 

 ativeness " that is, the power of forming dis- 

 tinct and vivid mental pictures of circumstances 

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