xvi SYSTEMATIC THOUGHT 383 



extend only to the Group to which hpr belongs. In any 

 society but the most primitive tribe, which is too small 

 and too feebly organised to admit of much differentiation, 

 the differences and antagonisms that keep different tribes 

 apart are reproduced, if somewhat more faintly, in the re- 

 lations of groups, classes, or castes within the tribe. All 

 the world over, a man has one morality which he keeps 

 for his peers, and another for those u beneath " him. k 

 is instructive to note how the moral distinction survives 

 the disappearance of the political forms or legal barriers 

 in which it is originally expressed. It is in the most 

 democratic communities that we are apt to find the shades 

 of social inequality most nicely marked off. The average 

 man cannot genuinely feel that an inferior class deserves or 

 even really desires the kind of treatment which he expects 

 for himself, and recognises as due from him to others of 

 his own order. " Libbaty's a kinder thing that don't agree 

 with niggers " is a maxim which, mutatis mutandis , governs 

 social morality all the world over. 



If we trace the moral paradox to its root, we shall find that 

 it grows out of an inadequate conception of that common 

 human nature upon which morality rests. The duties that 

 we recognise towards others, the rights of our own to which 

 we expect them to pay regard, are founded on the common 

 human nature which makes possible the broad reciprocity, 

 the give and take of social life. To this principle civilised 

 morality invariably does lip-service, but it is so imperfectly 

 realised, and its obligations are so faintly felt, that it is only 

 applied where other motives come to its support. These 

 motives fall roughly into two main classes. There are, 

 first, those of affection and sympathy on which rest family 

 life, and, in a less degree, the intercourse of friends, and 

 the relations of a man to those whom he recognises heartily 

 as his "neighbours." There is, secondly, the community 

 of interests, not necessarily mere self-interest, but the sense 

 of an end common to a certain group, be it a class, an 

 organisation, a party, or a nation. We have already seen 

 how this community of interest underlies the formation of 

 social groups, and develops along with them, being at once 

 the cause and effect of their life and growth. 



