116 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



member of society. Our alter ego is a watchman 

 ^ ' charged to restrain the anti-social tendencies. ' ' As 

 society becomes more complex with each century 

 this ethical ideal is constantly acquiring new attri- 

 butes, and these new attributes are mostly along the 

 general line that we call altruistic. The ethical 

 standard is coming constantly to have more thought 

 for others. Compare, for example, the ideal of the 

 ancient Hebrews with our own of to-day. Their 

 highest teachers, their loftiest ideals committed 

 massacres as merciless as those of the Turks, and 

 these acts received the highest approbation of that 

 race which has been the teacher of the world's 

 religion. A similar action to-day would strike 

 horror into the whole civilized world. 



The ideal of any man at any age is always the 

 embodiment of the characters which "his set" ad- 

 mires and regards as the best for the race in gen- 

 eral. His set may be a large one and thus give him 

 an average opinion of the race, or it may be a small 

 one, like some small religious sect, and this would 

 give him an ideal totally different from the aver- 

 age opinion of the race — sometimes lower and 

 sometimes higher. But the fact that the ideal may 

 change concerns the development of moral codes 

 rather than the evolution of the moral sense. Con- 

 science tells man to imitate his ideal. Whether 

 our ideal be a knight of the African savage, the 

 knight of the mediaeval ages, or the knight of 

 the twentieth century is dependent upon the acci- 

 dent of our birth; but this has nothing to do with 

 the motive that actuates us. The anarchist who 

 commits outrages may be as truly driven by con- 

 science as the missionary ; and in both cases their con- 



