394 GENEEAL SUMMAKY Part II. 



well developed, will be led to good actions, and may- 

 have a fairly sensitive conscience. But whatever ren- 

 ders the imagination of men more vivid and strengthens 

 the habit of recalling and comparing past impressions, 

 will make the conscience more sensitive, and may even 

 compensate to a certain extent for weak social affections 

 and sympathies. 



The moral nature of man has reached the highest 

 standard as yet attained, partly through the advance- 

 ment of the reasoning powers and consequently of a just 

 public opinion, but especially through the sympathies 

 being rendered more tender and widely diffused through 

 the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection. 

 It is not improbable that virtuous tendencies may 

 through long practice be inherited. With the more 

 civilised races, the conviction of the existence of an 

 all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the 

 advancement of morality. Ultimately man no longer 

 accepts the praise or blame of his fellows as his chief 

 guide, though few escape this influence, but his habi- 

 tual convictions controlled by reason afford him the 

 safest rule. His conscience then becomes his supreme 

 judge and monitor. Nevertheless the first foundation 

 or origin of the moral sense lies in the social instincts, 

 including sympathy ; and these instincts no doubt were 

 primarily gained, as in the case of the lower animals, 

 through natural selection. 



The belief in God has often been advanced as not 

 only the greatest, but the most complete of all the 

 distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is 

 however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that 

 this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the 

 other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies 

 seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a 



