THE EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL SENSE 97 



customs which the members of the family implicitly 

 obey. But what sort of a feeling is it that urges 

 obedience? Is it a sense of duty, that is, a moral 

 sense, or is it some other impulse? Some of those 

 who have tried to analyze the lives of savage races 

 tell us that in low tribes of man there is nothing that 

 can properly be called a moral sense, not even in 

 rudiment; and that these savage families are not con- 

 trolled by any idea of right and wrong, but by quite 

 different motives. Fear of punishment, pride and 

 love of approbation, as well as dread of disapproba- 

 tion, love and sympathy, together with pleasure in 

 one another's company, constitute the real motives. 

 The idea of right and wrong, we are told, does not 

 exist. Such impulses do not particularly separate 

 man from animals, for the higher animals are influ- 

 enced by each of these motives. A tribe of monkeys 

 lives in harmony and is ruled by customs which are 

 obeyed a;nd apparently obeyed from exactly these 

 motives of fear, pride, etc. If there are no other 

 motives than these among primitive families, there is 

 no great distinction here between man and animals. 

 Such motives are surely innate, and are implanted in 

 the human nature, as in the nature of animals, by 

 organic inheritance. Primitive man differed from 

 other animals in showing an unusual power of form- 

 ing lasting unions ; but if the motives underlying the 

 customs adopted were only those of fear, pride, love, 

 etc., he was not in this respect much better endowed 

 than the animal world. 



Motives Involved. — Here, then, is a fundamental 

 question. Is it true that such people are actuated 

 only by these impulses, or do they have a real sense 

 of right and wrong? If the guiding principle is only 



