444 Mental Factors in Evolution 



man from those of the lower animals has been brought about a ' 

 differentiation the existence of which he again and again acknow- 

 ledges. His purpose was rather to show that, notwithstanding this 

 differentiation, there is basal community in kind. This must be 

 remembered in considering his treatment of the biological founda- 

 tions on which man's systems of ethics are built. He definitely 

 stated that he approached the subject " exclusively from the side of 

 natural history 1 ." His general conclusion is that the moral sense is 

 fundamentally identical with the social instincts, which have been 

 developed for the good of the community ; and he suggests that the 

 concept which thus enables us to interpret the biological ground-plan 

 of morals also enables us to frame a rational ideal of the moral end. 

 "As the social instincts," he says 2 , "both of man and the lower animals 

 have no doubt been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be 

 advisable, if found practicable, to use the same definition in both cases, 

 and to take as the standard of morality, the general good or welfare 

 of the community, rather than the general happiness." But the kind 

 of community for the good of which the social instincts of animals 

 and primitive men were biologically developed may be different from 

 that which is the product of civilisation, as Darwin no doubt realised. 

 Darwin's contention was that conscience is a social instinct and has 

 been evolved because it is useful to the tribe in the struggle for 

 existence against other tribes. On the other hand, J. S. Mill urged 

 that the moral feelings are not innate but acquired, and Bain held 

 the same view, believing that the moral sense is acquired by each 

 individual during his life-time. Darwin, who notes 3 their opinion 

 with his usual candour, adds that " on the general theory of evolution 

 this is at least extremely improbable." It is impossible to enter into 

 the question here : much turns on the exact connotation of the terms 

 " conscience " and " moral sense," and on the meaning we attach to 

 the statement that the moral sense is fundamentally identical with 

 the social instincts. 



Presumably the majority of those who approach the subjects 

 discussed in the third, fourth and fifth chapters of The Descent of 

 Man in the full conviction that mental phenomena, not less than 

 organic phenomena, have a natural genesis, would, without hesitation, 

 admit that the intellectual and moral systems of civilised man are 

 ideal constructions, the products of conceptual thought, and that as 

 such they are, in their developed form, acquired. The moral senti- 

 ments are the emotional analogues of highly developed concepts. 

 This does not however imply that they are outside the range of 

 natural history treatment. Even though it may be desirable to 



1 Descent of Man, Vol. i. p. 149. Ibid. p. 185. 



3 Ibid. p. 150 (footnote). 



