™«Ei-L] SOCIOLOGY CXXXV 



cient agencies of teacliiug: but the essential nature of ethical 

 conduct is held to inhere in the opinions which men entertain. 

 Ethics is a faith, and hence we call this stage of ethics fiducial. 

 Men must entertain the opinions believed to be wise that they 

 may gain that superlative liappiness which is the reward of 

 conduct. 



But how shall men know the good from the evil conduct? 

 By what criterion shall men be guided in the affaii-s of life? 

 Here a threefold standard is erected. The first is the teaching- 

 of the ancients, the second is the teaching of the priesthood, the 

 third is the voice of conscience. These three authorities are 

 supposed to coincide in producing valid concepts of good and 

 evil. 



Conscience is the instinctive impulse to moral conduct. To 

 understand this statement we must explain the origin of instincts. 

 Instinct is to the emotions what intuition is to the intellections. 

 Intuitions are habitual judgments of intellect, as instincts are 

 habitual judgments of emotion. As intuitions become heredi- 

 tary, so instincts become hereditary. The substrate of instinct 

 is the choice exhibited in aflinitv. In the human mind the 

 affinity of the several particles is organized as an apparatus of 

 choice with a nervous system of ganglia, nervous fibers, and 

 muscular apparatus which consists of a hierarchy of instruments 

 of activitv, otherwise called self-activitv. 

 . The habitual exercise of this apparatus in any particular 

 method results in the production of habits which, on becom- 

 ing hereditary, are called instincts. An instinct is inherited 

 not as a developed habit, but as a tendency and facility to do 

 or act in a definite manner. In connnon life these instincts 

 are observed on every hand. The instinct to partake of food 

 is inherited as an aptness and developed as a practice; so the 

 instinct to walk is inherited as aptness and developed by prac- 

 tice. The instinctive fear of serpents is inherited as an apt- 

 ness and developed by pi-actice, so that children as well as 

 adults easily acquire the fear of serpents and express this fear 

 and repulsion by acts of fright and avoidance. The fear of 

 fire is easily and speedily developed. 



There thus exists a tendency in the human mind to moral 



