ETHICS AND EVOLUTION 321 



perceived most tardily by those working in depart- 

 ments where the phenomena are the most intan- 

 gible and complicated. 



Darwin himself called * the love for all living 

 creatures the most noble attribute of man.' Giant 

 as he was, he perceived more clearly than any of 

 his contemporaries, more clearly even than his 

 successors, the ultimate goal of evolving altruism. 

 For he says : ' As man advances in civilisation, 

 and small tribes are united into larger communities, 

 the simplest reason would tell each individual that 

 he ought to extend his social instincts and sym- 

 pathies to all members of the same nation, though 

 personally unknown to him. There is, then, only 

 an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies 

 extending to the men of all nations and races. 

 Experience, however, shows us how long it is, if 

 such men are separated from him by great differ- 

 ences of appearance or habits, before he looks 

 upon them as his fellow-creatures. Sympathy 

 beyond the confines of man is one of the latest 

 moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by 

 savages, except for their pets. The very idea of 

 humanity, so far as I could observe, was new to 

 most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue 

 seems to arise from our sympathies becoming 

 more tender and more widely diffused, until they 

 are extended to all sentient beings ' (7). 



The influences of a doctrine old enough and 

 precious enough to have become embodied in the 

 life and institutions of a race persist generally, 

 through mere momentum, long after the substance 



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