R8 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I 



flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy 

 naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always 

 reverence, if not always obedience ; before whom all ap- 

 petites are dumb, however secretly they rebel; whence 

 thy original ? " 3 



This great question has been discussed by many writ- 

 ers 4 of consummate ability ; and my sole excuse for touch- 

 ing on it is the impossibility of here passing it over, and 

 because, as far as I know, no one has approached it exclu- 

 sively from the side of natural history. The investigation 

 possesses, also, some independent interest, as an attempt 

 to see how far the study of the lower animals can throw 

 light on one of the highest psychical faculties of man. 



The following proposition seems to me in a high degree 

 probable — namely, that any animal whatever, endowed 

 with well-marked social instincts, 6 would inevitably ac- 

 quire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellect- 



8 ' Metaphysics of Ethics,' translated by J. W. Semple, Edinburgh, 

 1836, p. 136. 



4 Mr. Bain gives a list (' Mental and Moral Science,' 1868, pp. 543-725) 

 of twenty-six British authors who have written on this subject, and whose 

 names are familiar to every reader ; to these, Mr. Bain's own name, and 

 those of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, and Sir J. Lubbock, as well 

 as of others, may be added. 



5 Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a social animal (' Psycho- 

 logical Inquiries,' 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, " Ought not 

 this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral sense ? " 

 Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as they did long 

 ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 

 * Utilitarianism ' (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a "powerful natu- 

 ral sentiment," and as " the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian mo- 

 rality ; " but, on the previous page, he says, " If, as is my own belief, the 

 moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason 

 less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so pro- 

 found a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are 

 instinctive or innate in the lower animals ; and why should they not be so 

 in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, ' The Emotions and the Will," 1865, 



