MORAL SENSE. 127 



tho social instincts (including the love of praise and fear of 

 blame) possess greater strength, or have, through long 

 habit, acquired greater strength than the instincts ol self- 

 preservation, hunger, lust, vengeance, etc. Why then does 

 man regret, even though trying to banish such regret, that 

 he has followed the one natural impulse rather than the 

 other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret 

 his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from 

 the lower animals. Nevertheless we can, I think, see with 

 some degree of clearness the reason of this difference. 



Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot 

 avoid reflection; past impressions and images are incessantly 

 and clearly passing through his mind. Now with those 

 animals which live permanently in a body, the social 

 instincts are ever present and persistent. Such animals are 

 always ready to utter the danger-signal, to defend the com- 

 munity, and to give aid to their fellows in accordance with 

 their habits; they feel at all times, without the stimulus of 

 any special passion or desire, some degree of love and sym- 

 pathy for them; they are unhappy if long separated from 

 them, and always happy to be again in their company. So 

 it is with ourselves. Even when we are quite alone, how 

 often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others 

 think of us of their imagined approbation or disapproba- 

 tion; and this all follows from sympathy, a fundamental 

 element of the social instincts, A man who possessed no 

 trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster. On 

 the other hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion 

 such as vengeance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a 

 time be fully satisfied. Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly pos- 

 sible, to call up with complete vividness the feeling, for 

 instance, of hunger; nor indeed, as has often been remarked, 

 of any suffering. The instinct of self preservation is not 

 felt except in the presence of danger, and many a coward 

 has thought himself brave until he has met his enemy face 

 to face. The wish for another man's property is perhaps 

 as persistent a desire as any that can be named- but even 

 in this case the satisfaction of actual possession is generally 

 a weaker feeling than the desire, many a thief, if not an 

 habitual one, after success has wondered why he stole some 

 article. * 



* Enmity or hatred seems also to be a highly persistent feeling, 

 perhaps more so than any ctlier that can be iiaaied Envy is defined 



