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122 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



powers as does the formation of the earth with its 

 mountains and valleys and rivers. To teach that 

 the moral sense came through the working of nat- 

 ural laws does not make it any the less necessary to 

 admit the inadequacy of the finite mind to com- 

 prehend it. Nor does the belief in the origin of the 

 moral sense given above destroy in the slightest the 

 imperative nature of the demands which our ethical 

 sense forces upon us. The demands of the moral 

 nature constitute the central factor in human his- 

 tory and form the key to an understanding of civ- 

 ilization. But whether or not some may differ from 

 the conclusion expressed in this chapter, all will 

 certainly agree that moral codes have been a matter 

 of education, and that these systems, which repre- 

 sent the moral condition of any nation at the pres- 

 ent time, have been slowly developed since the earli- 

 est records of mankind. This conclusion of a slow 

 development of the moral nature is all that is really 

 necessary to warrant the deductions which will be 

 reached in our general discussion. This will justify 

 the following analysis. 



What shall be our final conclusion as to the origin 

 of the moral sense, viewed from the standpoint of 

 science 1 Has it been the result of organic or social 

 heredity? Clearly, it partakes of the nature of 

 both. The impulses which lie at its foundation are 

 surely matters of organic inheritance. So far as 

 concerns the feeling of love, pride, fear, sympathy, 

 and possibly also the instinct to obey authority, and 

 other similar motives, they are without doubt 

 innate, and are bom in us as part of our natures. 

 So far as conscience consists of these alone it is 

 inborn and controlled by the laws of organic hered- 



