316 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



the action is adapted to produce, but by the psychological 

 nature of the adaptation. 



But here an opposite fallacy awaits us. If there is to 

 be consciousness of purpose, can moral purpose be some- 

 thing attributed to any animal ? Does an animal do a 

 brave or kindly act because it is brave or kindly ? The 

 difficulty in this form arises from a misconception of the 

 purpose of an act. A kind act is one that is done for 

 the sake, say, of relieving suffering. It is not one done 

 for the sake of being kindly. That would be a quite 

 different purpose, implying a general principle of action^ 

 and the act which it dictates would rather be an act of 

 duty than of kindness. A kindly act in the strictest and 

 most direct sense is one which purposes the help that it 

 gives. It may well be that even of this end the animal 

 has a much less clear conception than the man. He 

 probably cannot realise the feeling of the sufferer, but he 

 sees him in want or danger, and purposes to see him safe 

 or satisfied. There is a distinction of degree here, not of 

 kind. The distinction of kind arises, as we shall see, when 

 in the human world emotions and impulses are named, and 

 their actions and objects generalised into rules, while the 

 rules in turn are subordinated to principles. The man 

 may then act by rule or on principle, and if this is essential 

 to morality, then morality is rightly confined to man. 

 But the rules of human conduct are in turn based on 

 purposes which they do not create, but rather systematise, 

 and thus in a measure remodel. The moral judgment is a 

 reflection on the purpose, and the higher animal, if the 

 view of the preceding chapters is correct, has the purpose, 

 though it has not the judgment upon it. The lower 

 animal, on the contrary, has neither the judgment nor the 

 purpose, but merely the impulse to react which heredity 

 or experience has shaped in a fashion which simulates 

 purpose. If this is granted, it becomes a matter of words 

 where we shall draw the line of " morality." 



Perhaps the strongest reason for so drawing it as to 

 include the higher animals is to be derived from the facts 

 of self-control. In lower stages, one instinctive impulse 

 may inhibit another, fear, for example, may overcome 



