DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE. 131 



ures arising from the desire. Hunger, for instance, 

 is an imperative desire ; but, when satisfied, its pains 

 cannot easily be recalled in memory. It has often 

 been remarked, that our painful sensations arc repro- 

 duced in imagination less easily than our pleasurable. 

 Now, this desire for another man's property, Darwin 

 affirms, has in unsurpassed fulness the first part of 

 strength ; namely, the persistence of the desire. It 

 is, he says, "perhaps as persistent a desire as any 

 that can be named." But there is another part of its 

 strength, and that is the vividness with which we 

 can recall the pains or pleasures arising from it. 

 Darwin affirms, concerning that part of its power, 

 only that " the satisfaction of actual possession is 

 generally a weaker feeling than the desire of posses- 

 sion." He thus implicitly admits that sometimes it 

 is not a weaker feeling than the desire. Well, then, 

 if sometimes it is not a weaker feeling than the desire, 

 of course both parts of the strength sometimes belong 

 to this impulse. If, therefore, the most persistent 

 and strong instinct ought to be followed, as Darwin 

 says, then sometimes our desire for another man's 

 propert} r ought to be followed. Darwin explicitly 

 teaches that man comes to feel, through acquired 

 and perhaps inherited habit, that it is best for him 

 to obey his most persistent instincts. " The imperious 

 word ' ought ' seems merely to imply the consciousness of 

 the existence of a persistent instinct. We hardly use 

 the word ' ought' in a metaphorical sense when we say 

 hounds ought to hunt, pointers ought to point, and 

 retrievers to retrieve their game." (Ibid, p. 88.) 



