108 LESSONS FEOM NATURE. [CHAP. V. 



disprove the existence of moral intuition. Such instances are 

 utterly beside the question. It is amply sufficient for our 

 purpose if it be conceded that developed reason dictates to 

 us that certain modes of action, abstractedly considered, are 

 intrinsically wrong ; and this we believe to be indisputable. 



It can hardly be too often insisted on that it is equally 

 beside the question to show that the existence of mutually 

 beneficial acts and of altruistic habits can be explained by 

 &quot; natural selection.&quot; No amount of benevolent habits tend 

 even in the remotest degree to account for the intellectual 

 perception of&quot; right &quot; and &quot; duty.&quot; Such habits may make the 

 doing of beneficial acts pleasant, and their omission painful ; 

 but such feelings have essentially nothing whatever to do 

 with the perception of &quot; right &quot; and &quot; wrong,&quot; nor will the 

 faintest incipient stage of the perception be accounted for 

 by the strongest development of such sympathetic feelings. 

 Liking to do acts which happen to be good is one thing ; seeing 

 that actions are good, whether we or others like them or not, 

 is quite another. 



Mr. Darwin s account of the moral sense is very different 

 That moral from the above. It may be expressed most briefly 

 areTuupTy 8 by saying that it is the prevalence of more enduring 

 durin^in- 11 &quot; instincts over less persistent ones the former being 

 social instincts, the latter personal ones. He tells 

 us: 



&quot;As man cannot prevent old impressions continually repassing 

 through his mind, he will be compelled to compare the weaker im 

 pressions of, for instance, past hunger, or of vengeance satisfied or 

 danger avoided at the cost of other men, with the instinct of sympathy 

 and goodwill to his fellows, which is still present and ever in some 

 degree active in his mind. He will then feel in his imagination that 

 a stronger instinct has yielded to one which now seems comparatively 

 weak; and then that sense of dissatisfaction will inevitably be felt 

 with which man is endowed, like every other animal, in order that his 

 instincts may be obeyed.&quot; Vol. i. p. 90. 



Mr. Darwin then means by &quot;the moral sense&quot; an instinct, 

 and adds, truly enough, that &quot; the very essence of an instinct 

 is, that it is followed independently of reason&quot; (vol. i. p. 100). 



