286 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



morality and religion if he was not to supply an instance of retro- 

 gressive development. No other animal but man has reached a 

 stage at which virtue, properly so called, is possible. In birds 

 and mammals in general we can recognise only a very rudi- 

 mentary goodness ; for them sin does not exist. Any irregu- 

 larity of which an individual may be guilty brings on him or her 

 its immediate punishment, or else the offspring perish and the 

 bad stock disappears. The swallow whom instinct does not drive 

 to migrate to the south is killed by our northern winter. If a 

 thrush eats poisonous berries death is the consequence. If a 

 foolish calf gorges itself on green clover, its end is speedy. If a 

 wild bird does not feed her young they perish, so that no breed 

 is formed in which natural affection is lacking, except in a few 

 instances of parasitism of which the cuckoo is the most familiar 

 example. Since punishment falls swiftly on every irregularity, 

 it is difficult to speak of such a thing as sin -, it is only an 

 unfavourable variation. Nor can we say that among the lower 

 animals there is any such thing as virtue in the strict sense. 

 There are qualities which claim our admiration. Birds will fight 

 for their young. Maternal affection will put courage into the 

 hearts of the most timid. They will fight, or feign to be 

 wounded and draw the danger upon themselves. Among mam- 

 mals parental affection is more highly developed : the bird is no 

 doubt out-distanced. Yet even in birds there is undeniably a 

 rudiment of goodness, however unconscious it may be. But 

 nowhere except among mankind do we find anything that can 

 strictly be called virtue. An irregular tendency which in man 

 we should stigmatise as a vice is among animals at once wiped 

 out by Natural Selection, and therefore the animal world is a 

 region of instinctive right impulse. Those whose nature prompts 

 them to conduct that would be injurious to the species do no 

 harm, since they themselves speedily expiate the irregularity, 

 the unfavourable variation, or whatever we may choose to call 

 it. Moreover, there is never such a thing as a struggle between 

 impulses, one of which may, in popular language, be described 

 as selfish and the other as unselfish. The system of Natural Selec- 

 tion gets rid of all half-heartedness. The bird that in the nest- 



