THE MORAL SENSE. 325 



would make their appearance. For the tribes with 

 these instincts would have firmer union and a better 

 chance in the struggle for life. They would, there- 

 fore, be more flourishing, and would gradually 

 supersede the others. Spencer has elaborately dis- 

 cussed this subject, and has ingeniously tried to 

 prove that this conception will explain all of our 

 beliefs as to our duty to others. 



Having in this manner accounted for the origin of 

 inherited habits, all tending to the good of the com- 

 munity, and thus secondarily to the good of the in- 

 dividual, one more step is taken, and man is sup- 

 plied with his moral nature. These habits continue 

 to develop, are taught to children, and thus handed 

 down from generation to generation. Finally, by 

 long-continued inheritance, they come to occupy a 

 position in the mind, where they demand obedience. 

 " Activities, originally proved to be only useful, 

 were inherited as traditional instincts by the off- 

 spring, and were thus freed from the sensation of 

 the useful and acted as authority." They eventually 

 cease to be impulses or acts of reason, and are con- 

 scientiously performed as acts of duty. The sense 

 of obligation to act in certain ways, and the idea of 

 right and wrong, are simply the results of long-con- 

 tinued habit. The foundation of man's duty is first 

 the preservation of the tribe. Then, when the tribe 

 becomes absorbed by the nation, it is the preserva- 

 tion of the nation, and finally it will be the preser- 

 vation of the race. 



Such is the development theory of the moral na- 

 ture, a theory which amounts in brief to saying that 



