These things are too well known for any one, in real life, to be misled by the promises of the moralists we have spoken of. He who has once been proved guilty of evil-doing, is never again trusted, just as the noble nature, of which a man has once given evidence, is always confidently believed in, whatever else may have changed. _Operari sequitur esse_ (what one does follows from what one is) forms, as we have seen in Part II., Chapter VIII., a pregnant tenet of the Schoolmen. Everything in the world works according to the unchangeable constitution of which its being, its =essentia= is composed. And man is no exception. As the individual is, so will he, so must he, act: and the _liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ (free and indifferent choice) is an invention of philosophy in her childhood, long since exploded; although there are some old women, in doctor's academicals, who still like to drag it about with them. The three fundamental springs of human action--Egoism, Malice, Compassion--are inherent in every one in different and strangely unequal proportions. Their combination in any given case determines the weight of the motives that present themselves, and shapes the resulting line of conduct. To an egoistic character egoistic motives alone appeal, and those, which suggest either compassion or malice, have no appreciable effect. Thus, a man of this type will sacrifice his interests as little to take vengeance on his foes, as to help his friends. Another, whose nature is highly susceptible to malicious motives, will not shrink from doing great harm to himself, so only he may injure his neighbour. For there are characters which take such delight in working mischief on others, that they forget their own loss, which is perhaps, equal to what they inflict. One may say of such: _Dum alteri noceat sui negligens_[11] (disregarding himself so long as he injures the other). These are the people that plunge with passionate joy into the battle in which they expect to receive quite as many wounds as they deal; indeed, experience not seldom testifies that they are ready deliberately, first to kill the man who thwarts their purposes, and then themselves, in order to escape the penalty of the law. On the other hand, =goodness of heart= consists of a deeply felt, all-embracing Compassion for everything that has breath, and especially for man; because, in proportion as the intelligence develops, capacity for pain increases; and hence, the countless sufferings of human beings, in mind and body, have a much stronger claim to Compassion than those of animals, which are only physical, and in any case less acute. This goodness of heart, therefore, in the first place restrains a man from doing any sort of harm to others, and, next, it bids him give succour whenever and wherever he sees distress. And the path of Compassion may lead as far in one direction as Malice does in the other. Certain rare characters of fine sensibility take to