THE EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL SENSE 121 



of course, make the moral sense the result of organic 

 rather than social inheritance. Inborn with the indi- 

 vidual, it is a part of the innate characters with which 

 he starts into existence. This position is akin to that 

 of the intuitive philosophy, but it differs in the 

 fact that it insists that the conscience of both the indi- 

 vidual and the race have come into existence by a 

 series of slowly progressing stages and not full- 

 fledged at the human creation. The first human 

 beings had no moral nature; and from such a con- 

 dition the modern races, with their highly devel- 

 oped consciences, have been derived by selection of 

 those families or races showing higher and higher 

 grades of love, sympathy, and altruism, which has 

 resulted in what we now call the moral sense. 



The Moral Sense and Social Heredity 



It may be that some will be inclined to deny that 

 the moral sense has had any such origin as that 

 sketched out in this chapter. Some perhaps will 

 insist with the intuitive philosophers that it did not 

 have a natural origin at all, but has been implanted 

 in the human race from the start by supernatural 

 rather than by natural processes. To theistic 

 science of to-day, however, there seems to be very 

 little difference between the natural and the super- 

 natural. Theistic science makes the fall of a stone 

 to the ground just as much of a miracle as is 

 the creation of worlds. The birth of a babe by 

 natural processes is just as deep a mystery and 

 just as incapable of any explanation as is the cre- 

 ation of the universe. A natural origin for the 

 moral sense, therefore, such as is outlined above, 

 just as truly demands the action of supernatural 



