Darwinism in Ethics. 131 



A similar account is given of the immutability 

 and universality of moral conceptions. Morality 

 being the indispensable condition of social exist 

 ence, it is coextensive with humanity. The 

 primal virtues shine in every tribe and nation, 

 for without them no section of the human family 

 could have found its way through the struggle for 

 existence. And as amid many smaller variations 

 the general conditions of social life are every 

 where the same, moral laws could not fail to be, 

 if not eternal and immutable in the absolute 

 sense of Cudworth, yet as unchanging and endur 

 ing as the human species and the universe it in 

 habits. The fundamental agreement in men s 

 moral notions is thus explained without any as 

 sumption of supranatural revelation or d priori 

 intuition. 



Moral obligation presents a greater difficulty ; 

 and evolutionary moralists of the school we are 

 now considering have had to fall back upon the 

 answer of the ordinary utilitarians. They ascribe 

 the sense of obligation to the effects of the legal 

 and social sanctions with which certain kinds of 

 conduct are visited. Moral motives being at first 

 inseparable from political and social motives, they 

 have been permeated with that consciousness of 

 subordination to authority which naturally arises 



