112 The Descent of Man. Part L 



motives, or impulsively through instinct, or from the effects oi 

 slowly-gained habit. 



But to return to our more immediate subject. Although 

 some instincts are more powerful than others, and thus lead to cor- 

 responding actions, yet it is untenable, that in man the social 

 instincts (including the love of praise and fear of blame) possess 

 greater strength, or have, through long habit, acquired greater 

 strength than the instincts of self-preservation, hunger, lust, 

 vengeance, &c. Why then does man regret, even though trying 

 to banish such regret, that he has followed the one natural 

 impulse rather than the other ; and why does he further feel 

 that he ought to regret his conduct ? Man in this respect differs 

 profoundly from the lower animals. Nevertheless we can, I think, 

 see with some degree of clearness the reason of this difference. 



Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot avoid 

 reflection : past impressions and images are incessantly and 

 clearly passing through his mind. Now with those animals 

 which live permanently in a body, the social instincts are ever 

 present and persistent. Such animals are always ready to utter 

 the danger-signal, to defend the community, and to give aid to 

 their fellows in accordance with their habits ; they feel at all 

 times, without the stimulus of any special passion or desire, 

 some degree of love and sympathy for them ; they are unhappy 

 if long separated from them, and always happy to be again in 

 their company. So it is with ourselves. Even when we are 

 quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of 

 what others think of us, — of their imagined approbation or 

 disapprobation ; and this all follows from sympathy, a funda- 

 mental element of the social instincts. A man who possessed 

 no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster. On 

 the other hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion such 

 as vengeance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a time be 

 fully satisfied. Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly possible, to call 

 up with complete vividness the feeling, for instance, of hunger ; 

 nor indeed, as has often been remarked, of any suffering. The 

 instinct of self-preservation is not felt except in the presence of 

 danger; and many a coward has thought himself brave until he 

 has met his enemy face to face. The wish for another man's 

 property is perhaps as persistent a desire as any that can be 

 named; but even in this case the satisfaction of actual pos- 

 session is generally a weaker feeling than the desire : many a 

 thief, if not a habitual one, after success has wondered why he 

 stole some article. 27 



27 Enmity or hatred seems also perhaps more so than any othei 

 to be a highly persistent feeling, that can be named. Enry is de« 



