320 EVOLUTION OF TO-DAY. 



At all events here is a factor to be explained. A 

 moral sense has been universally developed by man, 

 and its existence in animals is more than question- 

 able. This seems a very little matter, the simple 

 ability to distinguish between right and wrong, but 

 it is in reality the foundation of the whole moral 

 nature. Is it possible to give a natural explanation 

 of this quality of the human mind ? Can any process 

 be discovered by which the ordinary relations of 

 animals could ever have given rise to the conception 

 of right as something which ought to be done at 

 whatever sacrifice, and wrong as something which 

 ought never to be done whatever the seeming good ? 

 Here we find a most serious disagreement among 

 thinkers. On the one hand stand the extreme evolu- 

 tionists, foremost among whom are Mill, Darwin, 

 and Spencer, who claim that this moral sense is 

 nothing more than a modified form of animal in- 

 stinct, and has been developed through natural 

 causes. On the other hand are many thinkers, 

 among scientists Wallace, Mivart, Argyle, Quatre- 

 fages, most all theologians, and the intuitional 

 school of philosophers in general, who deny the posi- 

 tion of the evolutionist in entirety, claiming that no 

 case has been made out, and that the whole question 

 as argued from the standpoint of the evolutionist is 

 misunderstood. Let us first notice the Darwinian the- 

 ory, as an illustration of the evolutionist's standpoint. 



Darwin's Explanation of the Origin of the Moral Sense. 



The foundation of this explanation is the fact that 

 any line of action to be morally right must result in 



