Of course this does not imply that at one period we foolishly believed consciousness to be an important guide, but subsequently becoming wiser, discarded its aid. On the contrary, the mechanization of second nature is simply a mode of extending the influence of consciousness more widely. The conclusions of our early lectures were sound. The more fully expressive conduct can be of a self-conscious personality, so much the more will it deserve to be called good. But in order that it may in any wide extent receive this impress of personal life, we must summon to our aid agencies other than spiritual. The more we mechanize conduct the better. That is what maturing ourselves means. When we say that a man has acquired character, we mean that he has consciously surveyed certain large tracts of life, and has decided what in those regions it is best to do. There, at least, he will no longer need to deliberate about action. As soon as a case from this region presents itself, some electric button in his moral organism is touched, and the whole mechanism runs off in the surest, swiftest, easiest possible way. Thus his consciousness is set free to busy itself with other affairs. For in this third stage we do not so much abandon consciousness as direct it upon larger units; and this not because smaller units do not deserve attention, but because they have been already attended to. Once having decided what is our best mode of action in regard to them, we wisely turn them over to mechanical control. IV Such is the nature of moral habit. Before goodness can reach excellence, it must be rendered habitual. Consideration, the mark of the second stage, disappears in the third. We cannot count a person honest so long as he has to decide on each occasion whether to take advantage of his neighbor. Long ago he should have disciplined himself into machine-like action as regards these matters, so that the dishonest opportunity would be instinctively and instantly dismissed, the honest deed appearing spontaneously. That man has not an amiable character who is obliged to restrain his irritation, and through all excitement and inner rage curbs himself courageously. Not until conduct is spontaneous, rooted in a second nature, does it indicate the character of him from whom it proceeds.