with no false ring in its utterance. It should be noted that just as
many a good act rests at bottom on false motives, on well-meant, yet
illusory representations of an advantage to be obtained thereby in
this, or another, world; so not a few misdeeds are due solely to an
imperfect understanding of the conditions of human life. It is on this
latter truth that the American penitentiary system is based. Here the
aim is not, to improve the =heart=, but simply, to educate the
=head= of the criminal, so that he may intellectually come to
perceive that prosperity is more surely, indeed more easily, reached by
work and honesty than by idleness and knavery.
By the proper presentment of motives =legality= may be secured,
but not =morality=. It is possible to remodel what one does, but
not what one =wills to do=; and it is to the will alone that
real moral worth belongs. It is not possible to change the goal which
the will strives after, but only the path expected to lead thither.
Instruction may alter the selection of means, but not the choice of
the ultimate object which the individual keeps before him in all he
does; this is determined by his will in accordance with its original
nature. It is true that the egoist may be brought to understand that,
if he gives up certain small advantages, he will gain greater; and the
malicious man may be taught that by injuring others he will injure
himself still more. But Egoism itself, and Malice itself, will never
be argued out of a person; as little as a cat can be talked out of her
inclination for mice. Similarly with goodness of heart. If the judgment
be trained, if the relations and conditions of life become understood,
in a word, if the intellect be enlightened; the character dominated by
loving-kindness will be led to express itself more consistently and
completely than it otherwise could. This happens when we perceive the
remoter consequences which our conduct has for others: the sufferings,
perhaps, that overtake them indirectly, and only after lapse of
time, through one act or another of ours, which we had no idea was
so harmful. It occurs, too, when we come to discern the evil results
of many a well-meant action, as, for instance, the screening of a
criminal; and it is especially true when we realise that the _Neminem
laede_ (injure no one) has in all cases precedence over the _Omnes
juva_ (help all men). In this sense there is undoubtedly such a thing
as a moral education, an ethical training capable of making men better.
But it goes only as far as I have indicated, and its limits are quickly
discovered. The head is filled with the light of knowledge; the heart
remains unimproved. The fundamental and determining element, in things
moral, no less than in things intellectual, and things physical, is
that which is inborn. Art is always subordinate, and can only lend a
helping hand. Each man is, what he is, as it were, "by the grace of
God," _jure divino, θείᾳ, μοίρᾳ_, (by divine dispensation).