begins life as a thief, with, as he says, "no intuitive conscience at all," and yet with a knowledge that what he does is an outward social offence, since he must needs do it secretly. At last he is converted to honesty — by what? Not by the teachings of others, not by detection and punishment, but by the very magnitude of his own crimes. He steals so much that the burden becomes too heavy to bear. It sobers him; and a success which would have turned a non-moral or an immoral boy into a confirmed criminal, produces in him a reaction towards honesty. This would seem to be a common experience. A youth tries dissipation, or indulges himself in tyranny or meanness, till at last an experience supervenes which tastes too strong, even for him, the agent. He didn't intend quite that! It casts a 'lurid light' on all the rest of the performances, so he cries 'halt' and 'turns over a new leaf.' Now I take it that the doctrine of an innate conscience in morals, as opposed to the pure associationist doctrine of nursery-teaching plus prudential calculation, means no more than this, that bad deeds will end by tasting bad, even to the agent who does them successfully, if you let him experience them concretely enough, with all the circumstances that they comport. They will, in short, beget an intrinsic disgust; the need of stealthiness in our tread, the satiety which our orgies leave, the looks and cries of our victims lingering obstinately behind, spoil the fun for us and end by undermining it altogether. For the poor deaf and dumb boy the fun of thieving stopped as soon as the ill-gotten gold-piece saddled him with so important a responsibility that even his moon-mother in the sky grew mixed up with the affair.
Few documents, it seems to me, cast more light on our unsophisticated intellectual and moral instincts than the sincere and unpretending narrative which Mr. d'Estrella has allowed me to print.
Harvard University.
