MORAL SENSE. * 139 



united into larger communities, the simplest reason would * 

 tell each individual that he ought to extend his social / 

 instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same/ 

 nation, though personally unknown to him. This pointJ 

 being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to preJ 

 yent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations 

 and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him 

 by great differences in appearance or habits, experience 

 unfortunately shows us how long it is, before we look at 

 them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the con- 

 fines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems 

 to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently 

 unfelt by savages, except toward their pets. How little 

 the old Romans knew of it is showTi by their abhorrent 

 gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as 

 far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of 

 the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which 

 man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sym- 

 pathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, 

 until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon ap 

 this virtue is honored and practiced by some few men, i ; 

 spreads through instruction and example to the young, an( [ 

 eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion. 



The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we 

 recognize that we ought to control our thoughts, and 

 '' not even in inmost thought to think again the sins that 

 made the past so pleasant to us. ""* Whatever makes any 

 bad action familiar to the mind renders its performance 

 by so much the easier. As Marcus Aurelius long ago said: 

 '' Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the 

 character of thy mind ; for the soul is dved bv the 

 thoughts."! 



Our great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, has recently 

 explained his views on the moral sense. He says: J '^I 

 believe that the experiences of utility organized and con- 

 solidated through all past generations of the human race, 

 have been producing corresponding modifications, which, 



* Tennyson's " Idylls of the King," p. 244. 



f "The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus," Eng. 

 translat., 2d edit., 1869, p. 112. Marcus Aurelius was born a. d. 

 121. 



^ Letter to Mr, Mill in Bains "Mental and Moral Science," 1868, 

 p. 722. 



