Source identified1
Image design Midnight
Read & copy
“The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”
Meaning & context
Walter Hartright rejects a simple moral picture in which people behave with perfect consistency, allowing that even deeply flawed characters can act in mixed or unexpected ways.
Source details
The Woman in White, Third Epoch, ‘The Story Continued by Walter Hartright,’ section II, Project Gutenberg #583. Walter tells Marian ‘The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?’ while they assess Count Fosco after Marian reports his warning. It remains fictional moral reasoning about a particular antagonist rather than an empirical rule about human behavior.