It is a matter of common knowledge that the environment of the rich "puts forth sins like scarlet flowers in summer." CHAPTER NINE--THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE THE religious mind loves mysteries. Conscience has always been set down as a mystery by religious people. It has been called "the still small voice," and we have been taught that it is a supernatural kind of sense by which man is guided in his knowledge of good and evil. Now, I claim that conscience is no more supernatural than is the sense of smell, and no more mysterious than the stomach. If conscience were what religious people think it is--a kind of heavenly voice whispering to us what things are right and wrong--we should expect to find its teachings constant. It would not chide one man, and approve another, for the same act. It would not warn men that an act was wrong in one age, and assure them in another age that the same act was right. It would not have one rule of morality for the guidance of an Englishman, and another rule of morality for the guidance of a Turk. It would not change its moral code as the man it is supposed to guide changes his beliefs through education and experience. It would not give such widely different men of the same age and nation. If conscience were really a supernatural guide to right conduct it would always and everywhere tell man what is eternally right or eternally wrong. But conscience is changeable and uncertain. It is a magnetic needle that points North at one time and South at another time; that points East on one ship and West on another ship; that points all round the compass for all kinds of travellers on life's ocean; that has no relation to the everlasting truths at all. Sceptics have pointed out that "conscience is geographical"; that it gives different verdicts in different countries, on the same evidence. But I shall show that conscience is: 1. Geographical: that it is not the same in one country as in another. 2. Historical: that it is not the same in one age as in another. 3. Personal: that it is not the same in one person as in another. 4. Changeable: it alters with its owner's mind. And that, therefore, conscience is not a true and certain guide to right, and cannot be the voice of God. First, as to geographical, or local, conscience. The English conscience looks with horror or disgust upon polygamy, child murder, cannibalism, and the blood feud. The Turkish conscience allows many wives; the Redskin conscience allows the scalping of enemies; the Afghan conscience applauds the dutiful son who murders the nephew of his father's enemy; the cannibal conscience is silent at a feast of cold missionary; the Chinese conscience goes blandly to the killing of girl babies; the Rand conscience sees no evil in the flogging of Kaffirs and Chinese; the aristocratic conscience is not ashamed of taking the bread from starving peasants and their children; the capitalist conscience permits the making of fortunes out of sweated labour.