Darwinism in Ethics. 147 



or less unintelligent ancestors of man, these prac 

 tices themselves having crystallized into habits 

 from an inchoate chaos of random acts. &quot;YVe have 

 in the preceding chapter considered Darwin s 

 derivation of instincts from casual actions, and 

 we have here only to inquire whether conscience 

 is nothing but the social instinct illuminated by 

 intelligence. Were it so, we could not fail to ad 

 mire the manner in which morality was forced 

 upon unwilling beings until at last appeared an 

 intelligence capable of freely accepting it and 

 heartity setting about its realization. As in the 

 education of the human race, according to Les- 

 sing, religion is at first revealed only that it may 

 ultimately become rational, why should not the 

 practice of morality at first have been compulsory 

 that it might in due time become free and gra 

 cious ? But, after all, I believe an analysis of 

 the facts will not suffer us to take this view of the 

 providential government of the world. In the 

 contents of the moral consciousness I find unique 

 elements, unlike anything that went along with 

 the earlier stages of the development of life, and 

 absolutely incapable of resolution into practices 

 useful for social survival blindly followed by the 

 non-moral precursors of humanity. If the social 

 instinct is, as the theory supposes, only a means 



