for doing it.

In short, when Major Barbara says that there are no scoundrels,
she is right: there are no absolute scoundrels, though there are
impracticable people of whom I shall treat presently. Every
practicable man (and woman) is a potential scoundrel and a
potential good citizen. What a man is depends on his character;
but what he does, and what we think of what he does, depends on
his circumstances. The characteristics that ruin a man in one
class make him eminent in another. The characters that behave
differently in different circumstances behave alike in similar
circumstances. Take a common English character like that of Bill
Walker. We meet Bill everywhere: on the judicial bench, on the
episcopal bench, in the Privy Council, at the War Office and
Admiralty, as well as in the Old Bailey dock or in the ranks of
casual unskilled labor. And the morality of Bill's
characteristics varies with these various circumstances. The
faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier: the
manners and habits of a duke would cost a city clerk his
situation. In short, though character is independent of
circumstances, conduct is not; and our moral judgments of
character are not: both are circumstantial. Take any condition of
life in which the circumstances are for a mass of men practically
alike: felony, the House of Lords, the factory, the stables, the
gipsy encampment or where you please! In spite of diversity of
character and temperament, the conduct and morals of the
individuals in each group are as predicable and as alike in the
main as if they were a flock of sheep, morals being mostly only
social habits and circumstantial necessities. Strong people know
this and count upon it. In nothing have the master-minds of the