Chap. XXL] AND CONCLUDING REMARKS. 377 



It is not improbable that virtuous tendencies may through 

 long practice be inherited. With the more civilized 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 influ- 

 ence, but his habitual 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, im- 

 possible, 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 considerable advance in the 

 reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance 

 in his faculties of imagination, curiosity, and wonder. I 

 am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has 

 been used by many persons as an argument for His exist- 

 ence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be 

 compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and 

 malignant spirits, possessing only a little more power 

 than man ; for the belief in them is far more general than 

 of a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and benefi- 

 cent Creator of the universe does not seem to arise in the 

 mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued 

 culture. 



He who believes in the advancement of man from some 

 lowly-organized form, will naturally ask, "How does this 



