MORAL SENSE. ' HI 



This great qnestion has been discussed by many writers * 

 of consummate ability; and my sole excuse for touching on 

 it, is the impossibility of here passing it over; and because, 

 as far as I know, no "one has approached it exclusively 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 throws light on one of 

 the hignest psychical faculties of man. 



The following proposition seems to me in a high degi*ee 

 probaoie namely; that any animal whatever, endowed with 

 well-mariied social instincts,! the parental and filial affec- 

 tions being here included, would inevitably acquire a 

 moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers 

 had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. 

 For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take 

 pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain 

 amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various 

 services for them. The services may be of a definite and 

 evidently instinctive nature ; or there may be only a wish 



*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, Sir J. 

 Lubbock and others, might be added. 



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

 chological Enquiries," 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 per- 

 sons, as they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill 

 speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism," (1864, pp. 45, 46), 

 of the social feelings as a " powerful natural sentiment," and as " the 

 natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality." Again he says, 

 " Like the other acquired capacities above referred to, the moral 

 faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; 

 capable, like them, in a certain small degree of springing up sponta- 

 neously." But in opposition to all this, he also remarks, "if, as is 

 my own Delief, 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 at all from so profound 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, p. 481) and 

 others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual 

 during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at 

 least extremely improbable. The ignoring of all transmitted mental 

 qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter judged as a most serious 

 blemish in the works of Mr. Mill. 



