IX.] EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 211 



Thus some Darwinians assert that tlic germs of morality 

 exist in brutes, and we liavc seen that Mr. Darwin liitnsclf 

 speculates on the subject as regards the highest apes. It 

 may safely be affirmed, however, that there is no trace in 

 brutes of any action simulating morality which are not ex- 

 plicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, 

 or by personal affection. No sign of moral reprobation is 

 given by any brute, andj^et had such existed in germ through 

 Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence of its exist- 

 ence must surely have been rendered perceptiljle through 

 " survival of the fittest" in other forms besides man, if that 

 " survival " has alone and exclusively produced it in him. 



Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward 

 of useful acts which sinuilate morality, such as parental 

 care of the young, etc. But did tlie most undeviating ha])its 

 guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and infirm 

 members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended 

 by young which benefited by their experience, such acts 

 would not indicate even the faintest rudiment of real, i. c., 

 formal, morality. " Natural Selection " would, of course, 

 often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a commu- 

 nity, and to acts materialbj good ; but unless they can be 

 shown to be formally so, they are not in the least to the 

 point, they do not ofler any explanation of the origin of an 

 altogether new and fundamentally different motive and con- 

 ception. 



It is interesting, on the otlier hand, to note Mr. Darwin's 

 statement as to the existence of a distinct moral feeling, 

 even in, perhaps, the very lowest and most degraded of all 

 the human races known to us. Thus in the same "Journal 

 of Researches " ' before quoted, bearing witness to the exist- 

 ence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he 

 says : " The nearest approach to religious feeling which I 

 heard of was shown by York Minster (a Fuegian so named), 



» Vol. i., p. 215. 



