THE MORAL SENSE. 323 



only productive of no pleasure (except the pleasure 

 of feeling that we do right), but they sometimes in- 

 duce lasting misfortune or even death. A person 

 who possesses a fortune which belongs to another 

 and restores it to the rightful owner, performs an 

 act which every one will consider right, even though 

 he entail privation and suffering on himself and 

 family for years. No one questions the moral 

 Tightness of the sacrifices of martyrs. Such acts as 

 these, of which there are thousands, do not come 

 under the explanation given above, for they neither 

 produce pleasure nor preserve life. Most of our 

 duties are indeed sacrifices. A theory of develop- 

 ment of the moral nature from a grade of the brute 

 must, of course, include this class of actions, which 

 is after all the most important. Natural selection 

 of instincts would lead to the preservation of those 

 individuals who best take care of themselves, but our 

 moral sense teaches us to care for the weak and to 

 help each other. Our ideas of duty, and particularly 

 the teachings of Christ, have largely reversed the 

 law of self-preservation which is universal among 

 animals. Is it possible for Darwin to explain the 

 origin of this feeling, which places the good of 

 others before our own? 



The origin of the feeling of obligation to perform 

 this class of duties, he tells us, was in the social in- 

 stincts of primeval man. All that is known of 

 primitive man, or the primates from which he is 

 supposed to have descended, indicates that the 

 earliest men lived, as they do to-day, in companies 

 or tribes. In these social communities the individ- 



