That such a purpose does not exist in the new-born mind, and that it must be a considerable time before it is possible, in the nature of things, to be originated, needs no attempt to illustrate. Such a purpose is dependent on knowledge of truth, on habits, and these on the character of the educators of mind, and on other surrounding social influences. These are the chief causes of the wrong action of mind as they have been developed by experience. In the next chapters we shall consider the results of the wrong action of mind as they have been exhibited in the experience of mankind, and as they are to be anticipated in a future world. CHAPTER XXVI. WRONG ACTION OF MIND, AND ITS RESULTS IN THIS LIFE. We have examined into the causes of the wrong action of mind, and have found them to consist in the want of knowledge, want of habits, want of social influences from other minds, and want of a right governing purpose, all of which, so far as reason and experience teach, alone could be secured by perfect and infallible teachers and educators in a perfect commonwealth. We are now to inquire in regard to the wrong action of mind and its results in this life. The first point to be noticed is the fact that from the first there is in every intelligent mind _a sense of entire inability_ to obey the laws of the system in which it is placed. This is true not merely in reference to that breach of law which is the inevitable result of ignorance, but of that also which involves a violation of conscience. Where is the mother who has not heard the distressed confession, even from the weeping infant, that he was happier in doing right than in doing wrong, that he wished to do well, and yet that he was constantly doing evil? Where is the parent that has not witnessed, as one little being after another passed on from infancy to youth, and from youth to manhood, the perpetual warfare to sustain good purposes and oft-broken resolutions? And where is the conscious spirit that can not look back on its whole course of existence as one continued exhibition of a conflict that gives unvarying evidence of this truth? Men _feel_ that it is as impossible for them to be invariably _perfect_ in thought, word, and deed, as it is to rule the winds and waves.