The egoistic impulses, the feeling of unconditional right to possession, are the impulses with which the child is born; morality is not inborn, but must be developed by education, as is shown by the example of such children as are neglected in education.[62] Or, if there is anything innate in the direction of morality, it is merely a certain inherited predisposition acquired in the course of the thousands of years of social intercourse, which makes it easier for us to respond to education. If this is not so, and the impulse to morality is innate, why has it required so many centuries for man to make the simple connection of ideas, that what is just towards one man is just towards another. In this feeling of justice, acquired through an extension of egoism, is the root of all virtue. It is the spring of sympathy or benevolence, which can be developed only where the feeling of the like rights of others is strong.

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