CH. xxii.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 353 



needed for the cynical theory that sympathy is &quot;but an 

 ethereally refined selfishness, and that when we relieve a 

 fellow-creature in distress we do it only because it pains us 

 to see him suffer. This is true ; but when the pain occa 

 sioned by the sight of another s suffering, or by the idea of 

 suffering and wrong when generalized and detached from the 

 incidents of particular cases, becomes so strong as to deter 

 mine our actions, then the chasm is entirely crossed which 

 divides us psychically from the brutes. Between the Fiji, 

 who keenly relishes the shrieks of his human victim, and 

 Uncle Toly, who could not kill a fly and pitied even the 

 Devil, the difference has come to be generic. And when this 

 kind of self-pleasing is carried so far as to lead. a man to risk 

 his life in the effort to rescue a stranger, or perhaps even an 

 enemy, from fire, or drowning, it is so widely removed from 

 what we mean when we speak of selfishness as to be antithe 

 tical to it. We do not describe the workings of Shakespeare s 

 genius as reflex actions, though all intelligence was originally 

 reflex action. Neither are we justified in describing as 

 selfish the actions which are dictated by sympathy, though 

 all sympathy is in its origin a kind of self-pleasing. 



As already shown in describing the chief characteristics 

 of the evolution of society, the primary cause which has 

 developed sympathy at the expense of the egoistic instincts 

 has been the continued integration of communities, originally 

 mere tribes or clans, into social aggregates of higher and 

 higher orders of complexity. For by this long-continued 

 process the opportunities for the exercise of the altruistic 

 feelings have been necessarily increased in number and fre 

 quency of occurrence, while the occasions requiring the ex 

 ercise of the anti-social feelings have become less frequent, 

 , o that the former set of feelings have become strengthened 

 by use, while the latter have become relatively weakened by 

 disuse. Along with this direct and obvious effect of social 

 integration, another effect has been wrought, indirect and 



VOL. II. A A 



