Chap. IV. Moral Sense. 1 09 



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 extremely remote period 

 some degree of instinctive love and sympathy for his fellows. 

 We are indeed all conscious that we do possess such sympathetic 

 feelings ; 23 but our consciousness does not tell us whether they 

 are instinctive, having originated long ago in the same manner 

 as with the lower animals, or whether they have been acquired 

 by each of us during our early years. As man is a social animal, 

 it is almost certain that he would inherit a tendency to be 

 faithful to his comrades, and obedient to the leader of his tribe 

 for these qualities are common to most social animals. He would 

 consequently possess some capacity for self-command. He 

 would from an inherited tendency be willing to defend, in 

 concert with others, his fellow-men ; and would be ready to aid 

 them in any way, which did not too greatly interfere with his 

 own welfare or his own strong desires. 



The social animals which stand at the bottom of the scale are 

 guided almost exclusively, and those which stand higher in the 

 scale are largely guided, by special instincts in the aid which 

 they give to the members of the same community ; but they are 

 likewise in part impelled by mutual love and sympathy, assisted 

 apparently by some amount of reason. Although man, as just 

 remarked, has no special instincts to tell him how to aid his 

 fellow-men, he still has the impulse, and with his improved 

 intellectual faculties would naturally be much guided in this 

 respect by reason and experience. Instinctive sympathy would 

 also cause him to value highly the approbation of his fellows ; 

 for, as Mr. Bain has clearly shewn, 24 the love of praise and 

 the strong feeling of glory, and the still stronger horror of scorn 

 and infamy, " are due to the workings of sympathy/' Conse- 

 quently man would be influenced in the highest degree by the 

 wishes, approbation, and blame of his fellow-men, as expressed 

 by their gestures and language. Thus the social instincts, 

 which must have been acquired by man in a very rude state, 

 and probably even by his early ape-like progenitors, still give 

 the impulse to some of his best actions ; Jbut his actions are in a 

 higher degree determined by the expressed wishes and judgment 



23 Hume remarks ('An Enquiiy " of the former . . . communicates 



Concerning the Principles of Morals,' "a secret joy; the appearance of 



edit, of 1751, p. 132), "There seems ." the latter . . . throws a melan- 



" a necessity for confessing that the " choly damp over the imagina- 



H happiness and misery of others " tion." 



u are not spectacles altogether in- 24 ' Mental and Moral Scien*« 



* different to u?. but that the view 1868, p. 254- 



