Let us look into the human heart (the best way is to look into our own) and see how these inherited qualities work for and against each other.
One of the strongest checks is fear; another is what we call conscience.
Fear springs sometimes from "love of approbation"; we shrink from an act from fear of being found out, which would mean the loss of that esteem we so prize. Or we shrink from fear of bodily pain: as those knew well who invented the terrors of hell-fire.
There is a great deal of most respectable virtue that ought to be called cowardice. Deprive virtue of its "dare nots," and how many "would nots" and "should nots" might survive? Good conduct may not mean the presence of virtue, but the lack of courage, or desire.
But, happily, men do right, also, for right's sake; and because it is right; or they refrain from doing wrong because it is wrong.
The bent towards right conduct arises from one of two sources:
1. Education: we have been taught that certain acts are wrong.
2. Natural benevolence: a dislike to injure others.
The first of these—education—has to do with "environment"; the second is part of heredity. One we get from our fellow-men, the other from our ancestors.
Here let us pause to look into that much-preached-of "mystery" of the "dual consciousness," or "double-self."