Note 15 — SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. (continued 2)

If more evidence can be wanted, it is supplied in some suggestive facts of Psychology. For example, "From our earliest childhood, the idea of doing wrong (that is, of doing what is forbidden, or what is injurious to others) and the idea of punishment are presented to the mind together, and the intense character of the impressions causes the association between them to attain the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. Is it strange, or unlike the usual processes of the human mind, that in these circumstances we should retain the feeling and forget the reason on which it is grounded? But why do I speak of forgetting? In most cases the reason has never, in our early education, been presented to the mind. The only ideas presented have been those of wrong and punishment, and an inseparable association has been created between these directly, without the help of any intervening idea. This is quite enough to make the spontaneous feelings of mankind regard punishment and a wrong-doer as naturally fitted to each other—as a conjunction appropriate in itself, independently of any consequences," &c.—Mill, Examination of Hamilton, p. 599.