320 THE FUTUBE OF RELIGION AXD MORALS. 



which the social as well as other virtues, as courage, and 

 sacrifice, were most observed and practised. All the 

 virtues necessary for society will be thus developed if 

 men live together sociability, sympathy, pity, as well 

 as regard for veracity, justice, and the general weal. 

 True, the vices may also be developed in individuals, 

 because at 'the bottom man remains a being with an 

 obstinate instinct to seek his own advantage, which 

 urges him to violate his duty to others ; but the united 

 interest of the society is always a force antagonistic to 

 these selfish impulses, and exerts itself to repress them. 

 Of course, the looser the cohesion of the primitive socie- 

 ties, the less scope there is for the development of the 

 virtues, which, in a state of savage isolation, may be, as 

 we still see, almost non-existent, or may exist only in so 

 far as the mere primitive unit, the family group, implies 

 some small recognition of them. 



Morality is thus no special fact in human nature 

 necessarily requiring a supernatural being to produce it. 

 The moral law was not specially handed down from 

 heaven to guide men's actions. Given only the self- 

 conserving instinct inseparable from all living beings, 

 given further the germs of the principle of sociability so 

 widely spread in the animal kingdom, and all social 

 animals, man included, must of necessity invent some 

 system of morals. Morality in this respect stands on 

 the same level with art, science, mechanical invention, 

 that they are all equally of man's creation and device. 

 Morality, indeed, presupposes some rudimentary form of 

 society, to whose interests it is strictly related, while 

 the others, although they find their fostering and en- 

 couragement in society, do not necessarily imply it, 

 being possible in solitude. Morality, too, was earlier in 

 the world than art, or science, or even religion (itself of 



