ix LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 201 



furnished me with similar, although lest severely tested, 

 instances ; and we cannot avoid asking, How is it that in 

 these few cases " experiences of utility " have left such an 

 overwhelming impression, while in so many others they have 

 left none ? The experiences of savage men as regards the 

 utility of truth must, in the long run, be pretty nearly equal. 

 How is it, then, that in some cases the result is a sanctity 

 which overrides all considerations of personal advantage, while 

 in others there is hardly a rudiment of such a feeling ? 



The intuitional theory, which I am now advocating, ex- 

 plains this by the supposition that there is a feeling a sense 

 of right and wrong in our nature, antecedent to and inde- 

 pendent of experiences of utility. Where free play is 

 allowed to the relations between man and man, this feeling 

 attaches itself to those acts of universal utility or self- 

 sacrifice which are the products of our affections and sym- 

 pathies, and which we term moral; while it may be, and 

 often is, perverted, to give the same sanction to acts of narrow 

 and conventional utility which are really immoral, as when 

 the Hindoo will tell a lie, but will sooner starve than eat 

 unclean food, and looks upon the marriage of adult females 

 as gross immorality. 



The strength of the moral feeling will depend upon 

 individual or racial constitution, and on education and 

 habit ; the acts to which its sanctions are applied will 

 depend upon how far the simple feelings and affections of 

 our nature have been modified by custom, by law, or by 

 religion. 



It is difficult to conceive that such an intense and mystical 

 f eeling of right and wrong (so intense as to overcome all ideas 

 of personal advantage or utility), could have been developed 

 out of accumulated ancestral experiences of utility; and 

 still more difficult to understand how feelings developed by 

 one set of utilities could be transferred to acts of which the 

 utility was partial, imaginary, or altogether absent. But if a 

 moral sense is an essential part of our nature, it is easy to 

 see that its sanction may often be given to acts which are 

 useless or immoral ; just as the natural appetite for drink 

 is perverted by the drunkard into the means of his de- 

 struction. 



