378 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



in different forms according to age, sex, and individuality, 

 becomes the foundation, first, of certain distinctive relations 

 which we might almost call " personal," with the appro- 

 priate emotions of love, hate, sympathy, attachment, 

 jealousy. Secondly, it is the foundation of little social 

 structures, families, flocks, herds, resting on a certain com- 

 munity of interest, admitting of a simple division of labour, 

 and possessing some permanence. To maintain these little 

 societies there must be a considerable measure of mutual 

 understanding and assistance. That is to say, among the 

 concrete or practical ends which we recognise at this level 

 of development, the satisfaction of mate or young or even 

 comrade may figure along with the satisfaction of self. We 

 may say broadly that in this stage, on the basis of Sym- 

 pathy, actions are adapted to concrete social ends. It must 

 further be recollected that such action rests neither on .blind 

 impulse nor on any general conception, but is directed to 

 the particular practical end preferred at the moment that 

 is, it is based upon desire. Human morality rests on the 

 same fundamental conditions at a higher stage of develop- 

 ment. Our common human nature is the ultimate basis 

 of moral conceptions. Upon the emotional need we have 

 of each other rest the affections, and with them the rela- 

 tion of family and friends. On the same creed extended 

 and reinforced by common understandings and common 

 interests which enjoin mutual help and mutual self-restraint 

 rests society. In short, upon the basis of a common nature 

 is reared a common interest and understanding. But this 

 common interest is not at first explicitly recognised. It is 

 rather a principle embedded in the structure of society, 

 and fostering its life and growth. What comes before con- 

 sciousness in the earlier stages is rather the mass of rules and 

 customs prescribing those dealings of individuals with one 

 another on which the existing social structure rests. These 

 rules and customs evolve later into written laws on the one 

 hand, and moral judgments supplementing and correcting 

 established laws on the other. Human society is from the 

 first differentiated from any animal society that we know 

 of by the fact that the individual actions on which it rests 

 are not left either to fixed instincts and habits on the one 



