Evolution of Morals. 2'">'^> 



a commercial, not a moral signification. These words come 

 to represent ethical ideas only by a process of metaphorical 

 transformation. '' But "why," continues the autliority just 

 quoted, "have not the morally good and bad their own 

 names in language ? Why do we know them from some- 

 thing else that previously had its appellation ? Evidently 

 because language dates from a period when a moral judg- 

 ment, a knowledge of good and evil, had not yet dawned in 

 the human mind." * 



With some of the higher animals, primitive man inherited, 

 however, in common with the gregarious instinct, an in- 

 stinctive sympathetic quality in which ]Mr. Darwin distin- 

 guishes the germs of morality. t These earliest social 

 tendencies, as well as those subsequently developed, are 

 directly related to that steady increase of population, which 

 intensified the struggle for existence, and thereb}' com- 

 pelled greater activity of body and intellect in the effort to 

 preserve life. As this process progressed, man's conduct 

 became more highly differentiated and evolved than that of 

 any other animal. Memory became more vivid and com- 

 prehensive. He looked backward and compared the effects 

 of his past actions, as determined by diverse motives, and 

 was influenced by this recollection when similar emergencies 

 arose thereafter.! As all his motives were egoistic, looking 

 toward self-preservation and self-gratification, his conduct 

 cannot, however, j'et be regarded as moral. If the instinct 

 for self-preservation could be satisfied by protecting and 

 ministering to companion and offspring, well and good ; if, 

 as he judged, by their destruction, no moral scruples stood 

 in the way of his deadly purpose. 



The long period of infancy nevertheless held the family 

 together, and necessitated a continuance of those acts of 

 mutual forbearance and affection which cease among animals 

 when the voung are able to make shift for themselves. The 

 mother ministered to the child, while the father gathered 

 food and protected the family from wild beasts and savage 

 men. Other children came, perhaps, before the care of the 

 mother over the first-born could be relaxed. So, in the rude 

 cave-dwelling, grew up the germ of the home — the earliest 



*Geiger's Address delivered to the Merchants of Frankfort-on-the-ilain. In 

 the Australian, and some other lanjznafres of extant savage races, there are no 

 words to express justice, or moral obligation, sin or guilt. 



t Darwin's Descent of Man. 



J Ibid., I., pp. '.to, 100. 



