Chap. III.] MORAL SENSE. 81 



larger numbers. Whether this is the case with the misrra- 

 tory in comparison with the maternal instinct, may well 

 be doubted. The great persistence or steady action of 

 the former at certain seasons of the year during the whole 

 day, may give it for a time paramount force. 



Man a social animal, — Most persons admit that man 

 is a social being. We see this in his dislike of solitude, 

 and in his wish for society beyond that of his own family. 

 Solitary confinement is one of the severest punishments 

 which can be inflicted. Some authors suppose that man 

 primevally lived in single families; but at the present 

 day, though single families, or only two or three together, 

 roam the solitudes of some savage lands, they are always, 

 as far as I can discover, friendly with other families in- 

 habiting the same district. Such families occasionally 

 meet in council, and they unite for their common defence. 

 It is no argument against savage man being a social ani- 

 mal, that the tribes inhabiting adjacent districts are al- 

 most always at war with each other ; for the social in- 

 stincts never extend to all the individuals of the same 

 species. Judging from the analogy of the greater num- 

 ber of the Quadrumana, it is probable that the early ape- 

 like progenitors of man were likewise social ; but this is 

 not of much importance for us. Although man, as he 

 now exists, has few special instincts, having lost any 

 which his early progenitors may have possessed, this is no 

 reason why he should not have retained from an extreme- 

 ly remote period some degree of instinctive love and sym- 

 pathy for his fellows. We are indeed all conscious that 

 we do possess such sympathetic feelings ; 19 but our con- 



19 Hume remarks (' An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,' 

 edit, of 1751, p. 132), "there seems a necessity for confessing that the 

 happiness and misery of others are not spectacles altogether indifferent 

 to us, tmt that the view of' the former . . . communicates a secret joy ; 



