September 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



243 



did of yore, is still very closely akin to true patriotism. 

 But the noisy British yelp of poodledom, just now heard 

 rather too frequently, both in the old country and abroad, 

 is not pleasing to the ears either of native Britons or of the 

 descendants from old Britain here. There must be a strain 

 of savagery, thit is, of undeveloped race-manhood, in all 

 races, even the most advanced — even as in the world at 

 large there are still present races akin in all their ways to 

 the Neolithic, even to the PaL-eolithic races of pleistocene 

 time. But these antiquated types are not the credit but the 

 disgrace of the times which they have unhappily survived. 



THE STORY OF CREATION. 



a plain account of evolution. 

 By Edward Clodd. 



PART II. 

 CHAPTER VII.— SOCIAL EX01.VTlO'S.^(Co>icIu,h-ii.) 



VOLVTIOX of J/orafe.— Man by himself 

 is not only unprogressive, he is also un- 

 moral. For where there is no society 

 there is no sin. Therefore the bases of 

 right and wrong lie in conduct towards 

 one's fellows ; the moral sense or con- 

 science is the outcome of social relations. 

 The common interests which impel to com- 

 bination involve praise or blame of the acts of each indi- 

 vidual in the degree that they aid or hinder the well-being 

 of all ; in other words, add to their pleasure or their pain, 

 and this praise and blame constitute the moral code, the 

 collective or tribal conscience. Society, like the units of 

 which it is made up, has to fight for its life, and all 

 primitive laws are laws of self-preservation. Self-preserva- 

 tion is based on sympathy between the several members, 

 and it is therefore the ultimate foundation of the moral 

 sense; whatever is helpful to it is rii]ht, whatever is a 

 hindi-ance to it is lurong. Although union involves limita- 

 tion and resti-aint, so that the units can no longer do exactly 

 as they like, self-interest comes into play, since a man best 

 insured respect for his own rights by respecting the rights 

 of others. Society is not possible where a man is not true 

 to his fellow ; there is, as the phrase goes, honour among 

 thieves, probably even among savages as low as the 

 Jolas of Gambia, every one of whom does as he likes, 

 the most successful thief being the greatest man. In 

 that model of sound and clear reasoning, so refreshing 

 a contrast to the tedious word-mongering of most writers 

 on ethics, Darwin's chapter on the growth of the moral 

 sense, he points out how man's instinctive sympathy would 

 lead him to value highly the approval of his fellow.s, and 

 how his actions would be determined in a high degi'ee by 

 their expressed wishes ; unfortunately, often by his own 

 selfish desires. But while the lower instincts, as hunger, 

 passion, and thirst for vengeance, are strong, they are not so 

 enduring or SJitisfying as the higher feelings which crave 

 for society and sympathv. And the yielding to the lower, 

 however gratifying for the moment, would he followed bj' 

 the feeling of regi-et that he had thus given way, and by 

 resolve to act differently for the future. Thus at last 

 man comes to feel through acquired and perhaps inherited 

 habit that it is best for him to obey his more persistent 

 impulses.* It is this self-accusing feeling of remorse 

 (literally, biting again), due to power of reflection on actions 

 and motives, which makes the difference so profound between 



» " Descent of Man," chap. iv. 



man and the lower animals, whose moral sense does not 

 advance beyond the stage which commits or avoids certain 

 acts according as they are remembered as pleasurable or 

 painful to the creature itself. 



Special value would be set by the tribe upon brave and 

 unselfish acts as contributing to the commonweal ; praise 

 and honour would reward the doer, encouraging that love 

 of the tribe in which lay the germ of love of country. For 

 he who is not a good citizen cannot be a true patriot, and 

 he who holds not his fatherland dear can never become 

 a well-wisher to mankind. The conceptions which these 

 larger interests involve are, however, of very slow growth ; 

 for a long time the feeling of rightness and wrongness was 

 limited to acts harmful or helpful to the tribe ; in fact, that 

 which was a crime within its borders became a virtue, and 

 even a duty, outside them. What Cassar says of the ancient 

 Germans — " Robberies beyond the bounds of each com- 

 munity have no infamy, but are commended as a means of 

 exercising youth and lessening sloth " * — still applies to 

 barbaric peoples, and has its survival in the slowly-decaying 

 prejudices of civilised nations. 



Morals are relative, not absolute ; there is no fixed stan- 

 dard of right and wrong by which the actions of all men 

 throughout all time are measured. The moral code 

 advances with the progress of the race ; conscience is a 

 growth. That which society in rude stages of culture 

 approves, it condemns at later and more refined stages, 

 although such is the power of custom in investing the old 

 with sanctity, such the persistence of authority and so deep 

 its interest against change, that moral qualities are grafted 

 upon acts apart from any question of their bearing upon 

 character. Such, for example, are the prohibitions against 

 certain foods and the commands to keep certain days sacred ; 

 such also the tyrannj- of caste, as among the Bhattiiis of India, 

 who regard dining at an liotel as a greater sin than murder. 

 Among the Mohammadan sect of the Wahhabees murder and 

 adultery are venial offences compared to the smoking of 

 tobacco. Among many savage peoples it is worse to marry 

 a girl within the tribe than to murder one of another tribe. 

 Among ourselves society condones a seduction, but not a 

 mesalliance, and forgives an offence against etiquette less 

 readily than an act of dishonour. 



The alterations in criminal codes witness to progress in 

 morals. Not to go further back when laws punishing 

 heresy and witchcraft were in force ; within the present cen- 

 tury, people were burned to death for coining false money, 

 hanged for stealing a few shillingsworth of goods, and im- 

 prisoned for paltry debts, death being often the only bringer 

 of release. Among the sights of London were the proces- 

 sion of condemned criminals to Tyburn every six weeks, 

 and the auctions of negroes at the Poultry Compter. These ■ 

 and a hundred other barbarities went on without protest 

 from the humane, whether Christians or non-Christians, 

 for the collective conscience did not question their right- 

 ness, and their abolition was ultimately due to the efforts 

 of individuals in whom a higher sense of human rights and 

 duties was aroused, and through whom the general moral 

 tone was advanced. That heightened tone, which is a yet 

 stronger note of our time, is, in the main, due to the pro- 

 gress of science, using the term as including not merely know- 

 ledge of the operations of nature, but knowledge of human 

 life as affected by divers causes, and of the community of 

 blood of all mankind. 



It is this which has broken down the barriers of prejudice 

 between the classes of each nation and between nations 

 themselves, bringing home the force of the Italian proverb, 

 "tutto il mondo e paese " — " all the world is one country." 



* " Comm.," book vi., chap. 23. 



