THE EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL SENSE 99 



upon their living children by allowing the family to 

 become too large, and that they are thus actually 

 instigated by a love for their children rather than 

 by a lack of parental affection. 



It will probably never be possible to determine 

 whether it is proper to call by the name of moral 

 sense the rather weak impulse that leads the savage 

 to recognize certain obligations. A European, who 

 is himself filled with high motives of duty, will be 

 likely to read his own motive into the actions of these 

 savages when he comes to live with them. He will 

 conclude that they are influenced by feelings of right 

 and wrong even when they follow lines of action 

 which to him seem wrong. Such a person would tell 

 us that the savage is just as truly following the dic- 

 tates of conscience when he kills his infant child as 

 was Abraham of old when he offered Isaac for sacri- 

 fice. Perhaps this is correct, but all that we can say 

 positively is that some motive urges him to the 

 action. Another man visiting the same tribe, finding 

 them so lacking in what he regards as a sense of 

 wrong, and finding such freedom of robbery and 

 murder, and perhaps such an absolute lack of hon- 

 esty, concludes they are destitute of moral sense and 

 act only under the influence of fear, pride, and greed. 

 He, again, may be right. Even if we were thor- 

 oughly acquainted with savages, it might be impos- 

 sible to determine what sort of impulses influence 

 them, and whether their moral sense is anything 

 more than that which impels a dog to obey his 

 master. 



Thus even among the races which stand at the bot- 

 tom of the scale some coercion to certain lines of 

 action is evident ; but it is significant to notice that it 



