190 Genesis of Conscience. 



anybody not pledged to a system of derivative 

 morality. The answer is simple enough. Man 

 perceives some desires to be higher or nobler than 

 others, he recognizes an obligation to admit the 

 better and exclude the worse, and he cannot defy 

 this authority without incurring the penalty of 

 remorse. Admit there is a scale of worth and 

 authority among our impulses to conduct, as well 

 as an order of intensity, and the whole difficulty 

 vanishes. This, however, is what our current 

 evolutionary school, for reasons more conceiv 

 able than cogent, has persistently declined to do. 

 The undeniable deliverances of consciousness are 

 in some way to be &quot; accounted for, 7 as though 

 you could explain why the whole is greater than 

 its part, or twice two four, or benevolence more 

 excellent than envy ! 



Let us consider Darwin s solution of the prob 

 lem he has raised : &quot; &quot;Why does man regret that 

 he has followed one natural impulse rather than 

 another ? &quot; 



In all such cases, according to Darwin, regret 

 is the concomitant of a violation of the social in 

 stincts on the part of the selfish instincts. It can 

 not be due to the greater strength of the former, 

 for, as a matter of fact, the social instincts in man 

 are not stronger than the instincts of self-preser- 



