140 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



by continued transmission and accumulation, have become 

 in us certain faculties of moral intuition certain emotions 

 responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no 

 apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility/'' 

 There is not the least inherent improbability, as it seems to 

 me, in virtuous tendencies being more or less strongly 

 inherited; for. not to mention the various dispositions and 

 habits transmitted by many of our domestic animals to 

 their offspring, I have heard of authentic cases in which a 

 desire to steal and a tendency to lie appeared to run in 

 families of the upper ranks; and as stealing is a rare crime 

 in the wealthy classes^ we can hardly account by accidental 

 coincidence for the tendency of occurring in two or three 

 members of the same family. If bad tendencies are trans- 

 mitted, it is probable that good ones are likewise trans- 

 mitted. That the state of the body by affecting the brain 

 has great influence on the moral tendencies is known 

 to most of those who have suffered from chronic derange- 

 ments of the digestion or liver. The same fact is likewise 

 shown by the *^ perversion or destruction of the moral 

 sense being often one of the earliest symptoms of mental 

 derangement;^^ * and insanity is notoriously often inherited. 

 Except through the principle of the transmission of moral 

 tendencies, we cannot understand the differences believed 

 to exist in this respect between the various races of 

 mankind. 



Even the partial transmission of virtuous tendencies 

 would be an immense assistance to the primary impulse 

 derived directly and indirectly from the social instincts. 

 Admitting for a moment that virtuous tendencies are 

 inherited, it appears probable, at least in such cases as 

 chastity, temperance, humanity to animals, etc., that they 

 become first impressed on the mental organization through 

 habit, instruction and example, continued during several 

 generations in the same family, and in a quite subordinate 

 degree, or not at all, by the individuals possessing such 

 virtues having succeeded best in the struggle for life. My 

 chief source of doubt with respect to any such inheritance, 

 is that senseless customs, superstitions and tastes, such as 

 the horror of a Hindoo for unclean food, ought on the same 

 principle to be transmitted. I have not met with any 



*Maudsley, "Body and Mind," 1870, p. 60. 



