Instinct, as we have seen, must inevitably play a very large part in the evolution of public morality and the moral impulse of every individual. Careful statistics have shown that criminal tendencies make their appearance with unfailing persistency in selected degenerate families. The genealogical record of one family may show a murderer in every generation; pauperism, prostitution and drunkenness are characteristics of another, and so on. Heredity will primarily determine a man's inherent characteristics--his instincts, temperament, disposition and, _eo facto_, his "conscience." Other factors, above all his immediate psychic environment, may, indeed, modify these tendencies for better or worse, but under the most favourable conditions Cosmic Suggestion, in its aspect of "public conscience," can never altogether supplant strong inherent tendencies. Those who believe in the conscience myth sometimes object that the voice of conscience always calls in the right direction, but that a man may, throughout a long life of crime, stifle and inhibit that "still small voice," yet in the end (perhaps when faced with the extreme penalty of the law) the wretched sinner will exhibit the symptoms of the most genuine and heartfelt remorse and express the greatest horror of his evil deeds. This type of explanation shows a total failure to interpret psychological processes. It may, indeed, be a common occurrence for a condemned criminal, brought suddenly face to face with the prospect of plenary punishment, to experience real sorrow and shame at his conduct. The emotion will probably be perfectly genuine. The prisoner, with little hope of enjoying the fruits of his felony and removed from the direct counter-influence of a criminal environment, will be in the best possible frame of mind to respond to the right cosmic suggestion--universal horror and detestation of his deed. Such a suggestion, reacting upon the instinct of self-preservation, will readily kindle emotions of remorse, self-horror and sorrow. Penitence need have nothing to do with any true ethical appreciation of the action of which it is supposed to be the object. Many cases have been recorded of miserable old women accused of witchcraft, who, learning for the first time at their trial of the crimes they were supposed to have committed, have become convinced of their guilt, and suffering the keenest pangs of remorse have died with penitence and resignation. Fear is the chief element of remorse: fear of our fellow-men, vague fears for the future, or in the most literal sense the fear of Divine retribution or God. Racine dramatizes this emotion in the famous confession of Athalie: filled with dread at the words of warning uttered by the ghost of her mother Jezebel, she recalls her vision: Tremble, m'a-t-elle dit, fille digne de moi; Le cruel Dieu des Juifs l'emporte aussi sur toi. Je te plains de tomber dans ses mains redoutables, Ma fille.