Darwin s Ethical Theory. 171 



were social likewise. He inherits, accordingly, a 

 tendency to be faithful to his comrades and obe 

 dient to the leader of his tribe. But his sympa 

 thetic impulses are not, as in some lower animals, 

 crystallized into special instincts which define his 

 action under all circumstances. Eeason and ex 

 perience must, at least in later stages, be the main 

 guides of his conduct. But as he is a sympathetic 

 animal, he must also be influenced greatly by the 

 wishes and opinions of his fellow-men, whose ap 

 probation he courts, whose blame he strives to 

 avoid. This motive to conduct would be at its 

 strongest when reason was at its weakest. Hence, 

 while the rational philosopher of modern times 

 makes little of the opinion of others, and, feeling 

 himself the supreme judge of his own conduct, 

 sets his heart against violating in his person that 

 dignity of humanity of which he believes himself 

 the bearer, his savage ancestor, ignorant of the 

 sentiment of humanity, has just reason enough to 

 recognize the force of public opinion in the set 

 of individuals with whom he happens to be asso 

 ciated, without any thought of the rest of man 

 kind, or with the thought of them only as ene 

 mies. The social instinct, developed in the 

 struggle for existence through natural selection, 

 jnustj willy-nilly, have been the supreme law of 



