100 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



concerns only sucli acts as affect the members of the 

 immediate family. An animal is commonly impelled 

 to do what is pleasing to him and to refrain from that 

 which is unpleasant. Man, as a member of a family, 

 is occasionally impelled to check his personal im- 

 pulses and to do something for the good of the family 

 rather than for self. That the interests of those 

 outside his family should influence his actions never 

 enters the head of the low savage. If he has any 

 sense of right and wrong, it is confined to his own 

 family. A Bushman, when asked to mention a bad 

 action, said it would be bad for some one to steal his 

 wife ; when asked to mention a good action, he said 

 it would be good to steal the wife of some one else. 

 Eobbery from another family is praiseworthy since 

 it increases one's possessions; but the idea is wholly 

 self -centered and does not extend beyond one 's imme- 

 diate f amilv. 



Upon this point of motive must hang the issue of a 

 moral sense among savages. So far as concerns 

 obligations to others, the step from the highest animal 

 societies to the lowest human family is a slight one, 

 but it is one upon which depends the permanency of 

 the family. Those human families were preserved in 

 the struggle for existence in which there was the 

 greatest amount of mutual reliance and unity, and 

 this occurred only in such families as taught their 

 children obedience. The child, during his early years, 

 when the brain is plastic, learns the few customs 

 upon which the preservation of the family is based. 

 Love of approbation urges him to follow the habits 

 of his elders and it is inevitable that he should come 

 to manhood with a mental nature in which these 

 habits have become a part. He followed these habits 



Unlwrtlty "^-^ 

 'vo TtrMito S^ I 



