unduly certain of their aspects. The forms of life, of education, or of food brought by
modern civilization perhaps tend to give us the qualities of cattle, or
to develop our
emotional impulses inharmoniously.
Moral activity is equivalent to the aptitude possessed by man to impose upon himself a
rule of conduct, to choose between several possible acts those which he considers to be
good, to get rid of his own selfishness and maliciousness. It creates in him the feeling of
obligation, of duty. This peculiar sense is observed only in a small number of individuals.
In most of them it remains virtual. But the fact of its existence cannot be denied. If moral
sense did not exist, Socrates would not have drunk the hemlock. Today it may be
observed, even in a state of high development, in certain social groups and in certain
countries. It has manifested itself at all epochs. In the course of
the history of mankind its
importance has been demonstrated to be fundamental. It is related both to intelligence and
to esthetic and religious senses. It impels us to distinguish right from wrong, and to
choose right in preference to wrong. In highly civilized beings, will and intelligence are
one and the same function. From will and intelligence come all moral values.
Moral sense, like intellectual activity, apparently depends on certain structural and
functional states of the body. These states result from the immanent constitution of our
tissues and
our minds, and also from factors which have acted upon us during our
development. In his essay on the
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