powell] SOCIOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 743
affinity of the several particles is organized as an apparatus of choice with a nervous system of ganglia, nervous fibers, and muscular apparatus which consists of a hierarchy of instruments of activity, otherwise called self-activity.
The habitual exercise of this apparatus in any particular method results in the production of habits which, on becoming hereditary, are called instincts. An instinct is inherited not as a developed habit, but as a tendency and facility to do or act in a definite manner. In common life these instincts are observed on every hand. The instinct to partake of food is inherited as an aptness and developed as a practice ; so the instinct to walk is inherited as aptness and developed by practice. The instinct- ive fear of serpents is inherited as an aptness and developed by practice, so that children as well as adults easily acquire the fear of serpents and express this fear and repulsion by acts of fright and avoidance. The fear of fire is easily and speedily developed.
There thus exists a tendency in the human mind to moral conduct and to inhibition of immoral conduct. This tendency is called conscience. Every human being is thus endowed with conscience as an instinct or hereditary aptness to act in a moral way. There are many other habits that are instinctive, and other instincts may control the individual while the moral instinct is held in abeyance. The moral instinct, like all the other instincts, is inherited only as an aptness and must be developed by exer- cise. Conscience can be cultivated only by the moral sentiments which the individual entertains. The sentiments of good and evil are governed by the knowledge of truth and error; that is, the emotions are fundamentally governed by the intellect, although the emotions may in like manner govern the intellect, for intellect and emotion are cooperative in every act of life. The knowledge of good and evil follows hard upon the knowl- edge of truth and error. In the economy of nature the intellect is first the servant of the emotional life until by its high develop- ment it becomes the master. In the ethics or religion of man
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