ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 321 



natural origin). It was probably not earlier than some 

 rude mechanical arts ; but just as certainly as these were 

 the devices of men themselves, so were moral notions 

 and rules. Indeed, the first inventors could with better 

 reason lay claim to inspiration than the first moralists ; 

 to invent and to execute being a gift of the few, to 

 perceive the need of moral conduct being common to all. 

 But as we believe that no God was required to teach 

 men to shape their rude stone hatchets, their spear and 

 arrow heads ; as the more skilful conceived and shaped 

 these, urged thereto and taught solely by the necessities 

 of their position under the instinct to live ; the bee and 

 the bird, under like impelling forces, displaying a like 

 mechanical ingenuity ; so men discovered, though much 

 more easily and generally, the need and utility of the 

 primary virtues. The real difficulty never came from 

 not seeing clearly their necessity; this was obvious 

 enough, even to individuals of the earliest and rudest 

 human hordes, just as it is instinctively obvious to the 

 lower social animals to-day. The difficulty was, and, 

 though in much less degree, still is, to reduce moral 

 sentiments and rules to practice, in opposition to the 

 powerful antagonistic forces of selfishness and sensuality, 

 which are in their essence instinctive, unreasoning, prone 

 to boundless excess, and regardless of the good of others. 

 Indeed, the difficulty in ruder times of curbing the 

 ungovernable egotism of the individual 'was felt to be 

 so great, that as soon as men had dome to conceive the 

 notion of supernatural and powerful personalities resident 

 behind the forces and phenomena of Nature fetishes, 

 demons, deities the aid of some of them was specially 

 invoked in order to give a supernatural sanction, the 

 fear of the god's displeasure, in addition to the ordinary 

 natural ones that society supplied. In still later times, 



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