What is called principle appears to be simply a habit of conscience, a rule formed originally by a synthesis of various impulses, but become somewhat mechanical and independent of its origin—as it is the nature of habit to do. As the mind hardens and matures there is a growing inaptitude to take in novel and powerful personal impressions, and a corresponding ascendency of habit and system; social sentiment, the flesh and blood of conduct, partly falls away, exposing a skeleton of moral principles. The sense of duty presents itself less and less as a vivid sympathetic impulse, and more and more as a sense of the economy and restfulness of a definite standard of conduct. When one has come to accept a certain course as duty he has a pleasant sense of relief and of lifted responsibility, even if the course involves pain and renunciation. It is like obedience to some external authority; any clear way, though it lead to death, is mentally preferable to the tangle of uncertainty. Actions that appear memorable or heroic are seldom achieved at the moment of decisive choice, but are more likely to come after the habit of thought which produces the action has become somewhat mechanical and involuntary. It is probably a mistake to imagine that the soldier who braves death in battle, the fireman who enters the burning building, the brakeman who pursues his duty along the icy top of a moving train, or the fisherman who rows away from his vessel into the storm and mist, is usually in an acute state of heroism. It is all in the day’s work; the act is part of a system of thought and conduct which has become habitual and would be painful to break. Death is not imagined in all its terrors and compared with social obligation; the case is far simpler. As a rule there is no time in a crisis for complicated mental operations, and whether the choice is heroic or cowardly it is sure to be simple. If there is any conflict of suggestions it is brief, and the one that gains ascendency is likely to be followed mechanically, without calculation of the future. One who studies the “sense of oughtness” in children will have no difficulty in seeing that it springs largely from a reluctance to break habits, an indisposition, that is, to get out of mental ruts. It is in the nature of the mind to seek a principle or unifying thought—the mind is a rule-demanding instinct—and in great part this need is met by a habit of thought, inculcated perhaps by some older person who proclaims and enforces the rule, or perhaps by the unintended pressure of conditions which emphasize one suggestion and shut out others. However the rule originates, it meets a mental want, and, if not too strongly opposed by other impulses, is likely to be adopted and felt as obligatory just because it is a consistent way of thinking. As Mr. Sully says, “The truth is that children have a tremendous belief in law.”[98]