All the evidence we possess tends to show that although the actions of most individuals are to a considerable extent determined by their social environment, that does not imply any alteration in their character. Everyone's experience of life, and especially the example of his friends and associates, leads him to repress his passions, regulate his emotions, and in general to use his judgment before acting, so as to secure the esteem of his fellows and greater happiness for himself; and these restraints, becoming habitual, may often give the appearance of an actual change of character till some great temptation or violent passion overcomes the usual restraint and exhibits the real nature, which is usually dormant.
Now it is this inherent and unchangeable character itself that tends to be transmitted to offspring, and this being the case, there can be no progressive improvement in character without some selective agency tending to such improvement. By means of a general discussion of the nature and origin of "Character," I have elsewhere shown that there is no proof of any real advance in it during the whole historical period.[7:A] I show later on what the required selective agency is, and how it will come into action automatically when, and not until, our social system is so reformed as to afford suitable conditions. (See [Chapter XVI].)
[7:A] See Character and Life, edited by P. L. Parker, pp. 19-31. (Williams and Norgate; November, 1912.)
CHAPTER III
PERMANENCE OF CHARACTER
I will now call attention to a few of the facts which lead to the conclusion as to the stationary condition of general character from the earliest periods of human history, and presumably from the dawn of civilisation. In the earliest records which have come down to us from the past we find ample indications that general ethical conceptions, the accepted standard of morality, and the conduct resulting from these, were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day, though in some respects they differed from ours.
As examples of great moral teachers in very early times we have Socrates and Plato, about 400 B.C.; Confucius and Buddha, one or two centuries earlier; Homer, earlier still; the great Indian Epic, the Maha-Bharata, about 1500 B.C. All these afford indications of intellectual and moral character quite equal to our own; while their lower manifestations, as
shown by their wars and love of gambling, were no worse than corresponding immoralities to-day.
In the beautiful translation by the late Mr. Romesh Dutt, of such portions of the Maha-Bharata as are best fitted to give English readers a proper conception of the whole work, there is a striking episode entitled "Woman's Love," in which the heroine, a princess, by repeated petitions and reasonings persuades Yama, the god of death, to give back her husband's spirit to the body. It is described in the following verses: