The idea, cherished by some, that crime or wrong of any sort is invariably pursued by remorse, arises from the natural but mistaken assumption that all other people have consciences similar to our own. The man of sensitive temperament and refined habit of thought feels that he would suffer remorse if he had done the deed, and supposes that the same must be the case with the perpetrator. On the contrary, it seems likely that only a very small proportion of those whom the higher moral sentiment regards as wrong-doers suffer much from the pricks of conscience. If the general tenor of a man’s life is high, and the act is the fearful outcome of a moment of passion, as is often the case with unpremeditated murder, he will suffer, but if his life is all of a piece, he will not. All authorities agree that the mass of criminals, and the same is clearly true of ill-doers within the law, have a habit of mind of which the ill deed is the logical outcome, so that there is nothing sudden or catastrophic about it. Of course, if we apply the word conscience only to the mental synthesis of a mind rich in higher sentiments, then such people have no consciences, but it seems a broader view of the matter to say that they have a conscience, in so far as they have mental unity, but that it reflects the general narrowness and perversion of their lives. In fact, people of this description usually, if not always, have standards of their own, some sort of honor among thieves, which they will not transgress, or which, if transgressed, cause remorse. It is impossible that mental organization should not produce a moral synthesis of some sort. There is nothing in this way of conceiving degeneracy which tends to break down the practical distinctions among the various forms of it, as, for instance, that between crime and insanity. Though the line between these two is arbitrary and uncertain, as must always be the case in the classification of mental facts, and as is confessed by the existence of a class called the criminal insane, yet the distinction itself and the difference in treatment associated with it are sound enough in a general way.