20 Evolution and Religion 



the opposite quality, first the sympathetic side of 

 human nature, secondly its selfish side. There would 

 appear to have been a profound meaning in his method, 

 for the shield of truth ever bears two sides. No human 

 being can be called exclusively selfish, no human being 

 can be called exclusively sympathetic. And yet Adam 

 Smith in his speculative treatises, purely for the pur- 

 pose of speculation (as in pure mathematics), seems to 

 have separated these two qualities which at heart are 

 really inseparable. 



Moral Sentiments 



In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith laid down 

 as his one great cardinal principle from which all sub- 

 ordinate principles follow, that the general rules of 

 morality which we prescribe to ourselves and which 

 govern our conduct are only arrived at by observing 

 the conduct of others ! ; and that these general rules of 

 morality are ultimately founded upon experience of 

 what our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit 

 and propriety, approve of or disapprove of. 2 Is not 

 the element of truth in Adam Smith's principle rather 

 that the mob, the undecided, the majority of men, wait 

 to take their cue from the leaders of public opinion, the 

 masterful ones, the strong spirits among mankind ? 

 Man, like some of the lower animals, apparently must 

 have leaders, leaders of thought as well as leaders of 

 action. If what these leaders of thought teach happens 

 to answer to a universal racial or social instinct, the 



1 Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 219. 2 Ibid. p. 220. 



