A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

102.
over generations until it almost constitutes an intuition of right and
'wrongconduct. He sees this as a satisfactory compromise between the
two modes of explaining moral awareness. "The hereditary transmission of
organised tendencies, together vdth the distinction between functions
and faculties,1I he explains, "enables us to reconcile the !!. priori in-
18
tuitional 'ldth the experiential the.ory." However, he is careful to
make explicit that what we inberit is .only a tendency. He has already
specified this in ~ Physiology ::f.. Common ~ (1859-60) where he
distinguishes between inheriting a capacity for devotedness in general,
which he helieved was possible, and inheriting a specific devotion for
the Virgin Mar;-v which was not.
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In The Stucly of Psychology (1878) he states that "in man this moral
sense cannot properly be said to be connate otherwise than as a musical
sense is connate: it no more brings with it conceptions of what is right,
what wrong, than the musical aptitude brings with it a symphony of
Be~thoven.
\Vbat it carries are certain organised predispositions that
spontaneously Or docilely issue in the beneficent forms of action which
th . f . t hId . ht II 20
e experlence 0 SOCle y as c asse as rlg ••
One of the recurring features of moral discourse in the mid-nineteenth
century, a feature as we have seen that is very much part of George
Eliot's system, is the hierarchical view of peopJ,.e's moral standing.
This does not imply that people occupy a fixed and permanent moral
position but rather the possibility of people rising and falling on a
moral scale. We find the same underlying feature in Plato's moral system
and can recognise that there is a decided correlation between theories
of moral development and hierarchical stages. 1111'h03e who have an ethical
bent," R. Rychlak maintains, "are naturally attracted to the growth metaconstruct
II and "the growth metaconstruct has an affinity for the hierarchical
arrangement of abstracts or behaviours. II 21