Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/455

Rh repetition of conscious actions the character is formed. This formation of personal character by action I have called "the higher heredity," as distinguished from the true heredity which finds its bounds in the content of the germinal cell. By means of habits each creature builds up in some fashion its own life. In such way and to some degree each is "the architect of his own fortunes." In such manner "the vanished yesterdays" are the rulers of to-morrow.

Besides the actual sensations, besides the so-called realities, the brain retains also the sensations which have been, and which are not wholly lost. Memory pictures crowd the mind, mingling with pictures brought in afresh by the senses. The force of suggestion causes the mental states or conditions of one person to repeat themselves in others. Abnormal conditions of the brain itself furnish another series of feelings with which the brain must deal. Moreover, the brain is charged with impulses to action passed on from generation to generation, surviving because they are useful. With all these arises the necessity for choice as a function of the mind. The mind must neglect or suppress all sensations which it can not weave into action. The dog sees nothing that does not belong to its little world. The man in search of mushrooms "tramples down oak trees in his walks." To select the sensations that concern us is the basis of the power of attention. The suppression of undesired action is a function of the will. To find data for choice among the possible motor responses is a function of the intellect. Intellectual persistency is the essence of individual character.

As the conditions of life become more complex, it becomes necessary for action to become more carefully selected. Wisdom is the parent of virtue. Knowing what should be done logically precedes doing it. Good impulses and good intentions do not make actions safe. In the long run, action is tested not by its motives but by its results.

The child, when he comes into the world, has everything to learn. His nervous system is charged with tendencies to reaction and impulses to motion, which have their survivals from ancestral experience. Exact knowledge, by which his own actions can be made exact, must come through his own experience. The experience of others must be expressed in terms of his own before it becomes wisdom. Wisdom, as I have elsewhere said, is knowing what it is best to do next. Virtue is doing it. Doing right becomes habit if it is pursued long enough. It becomes a "second nature," or, we may say, a higher heredity. The formation of a higher heredity of wisdom and virtue, of knowing right and doing right, is the basis of character-building.

The moral character is based on knowing the best, choosing the