Having thus, in some measure, considered what is literature and what the soul, let us note, further, that the literature proper to manhood is not proper to childhood, though the reverse is not--or, at least, never ought to be--true. In childhood, the soul and the mind act in harmony; the mind has not become preoccupied or sophisticated by so-called useful knowledge; it responds obediently to the soul's impulses and intuitions. Children have no morality; they have not yet descended to the level where morality suggests itself to them. For morality is the outcome of spiritual pride, the most stubborn and insidious of all sins; the pride which prompts each of us to declare himself holier than his fellows, and to support that claim by parading his docility to the Decalogue. Docility to any set of rules, no matter of how divine authority, so long as it is inspired by hope of future good or present advantage, is rather worse than useless: except our righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees,--that is, except it be spontaneous righteousness or morality, and, therefore, not morality, but unconscious goodness,--we shall in no wise have benefited either ourselves or others. Children, when left to themselves, artlessly and innocently act out the nature that is common to saint and sinner alike; they are selfish, angry, and foolish, because their state is human; and they are loving, truthful, and sincere, because their origin is divine. All that pleases or agrees with them is good; all that opposes or offends them is evil, and this, without any reference whatever to the moral code in vogue among their elders. But, on the other hand, children cannot be tempted as we are, because they suppose that everything is free and possible, and because they are as yet uncontaminated by the artificial cravings which the artificial prohibitions incident to our civilization create. Life is to them a constantly widening circle of things to be had and enjoyed; nor does it ever occur to them that their desires can conflict with those of others, or with the laws of the universe. They cannot consciously do wrong, nor understand that any one else can do so; untoward accidents may happen, but inanimate nature is just as liable to be objectionable in this respect as human beings: the stone that trips them up, the thorn that scratches them, the snow that makes their flesh tingle, is an object of their resentment in just the same kind and degree as are the men and women who thwart or injure them. But of duty--that dreary device to secure future reward by present suffering; of conscientiousness--that fear of present good for the sake of future punishment; of remorse--that disavowal of past pleasure for fear of the sting in its tail; of ambition--that begrudging of all honorable results that are not effected by one's self; of these, and all similar politic and arbitrary masks of self-love and pusillanimity, these poor children know and suspect nothing.