Imagination a Survival Factor 299 



The moral faculties are generally and justly es- 

 teemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. 

 But we should bear in mind that the activity of the 

 mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the 

 fundamental, though secondary, bases of conscience.* 

 ,This affords the strongest argument for educating and 

 stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual facul- 

 ties of every human being. No doubt a man with a 

 torpid mind, if his social affections and sympathies are 

 well developed, will be led to good actions, and may 

 have a fairly sensitive conscience. But whatever 

 renders the imagination more vivid, and strengthens 

 the habit of recalling and comparing past impressions, 

 will make the conscience more sensitive, and may 

 even somewhat compensate for weak social affections 

 and sympathies.* 



It is largely because of this service as one 

 of the fundamental bases of conscience and there- 

 fore of moral advance that Darwin finds that many 

 of the mental faculties, such as the powers of the 

 imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense 

 of beauty, a tendency to imitation and the love of 

 excitement or novelty, have been of inestimable 

 service to man for his progressive advancement.^ 

 Even the aesthetic qualities, "the ability to admire 

 such scenes as the heavens at night, a beautiful 



' In a letter to John Morley in 187 1, Darwin wrote: "When I 

 speak of intellectual activity as the secondary basis of conscience, 

 I meant in my own mind secondary in period of development; 

 but no one could be expected to understand so great an ellipse." 

 — More Letters of Clmrles Darwin, vol. i., p. 327. 



« The Descent of Man, p. 636. ^ Idem, p. 109. 



