Co-operation Instinctive i43 



But when humanity in evolution achieved conscious intro- 

 spection, and began to acquire the knowledge of good and 

 evil, there arose a difference of motive, which is seen to be 

 as radical as was the first dawn of will, or the earliest un- 

 conscious concession to altruism. In the history of humanity 

 it almost appears that this new difference has been construed 

 to mean even more than it should, and has been allowed to 

 lead man to an assumption that he not only possessed higher 

 knowledge and laws, but also enjoyed immunity from those 

 lower and older. This was not really the case. Here again 

 comes, with the new mandate, the need for a repetition of the 

 injunction that the new is added to the old and does not sup- 

 plant it. 



Let us inquire what is the first effect of self-consciousness. 

 In what way does the introspection of man's mind by which 

 he differs from the brute, first lead him into a human career. 

 Is it at once a full perception of good and its worth, and a 

 wholesome knowledge that evil is deadly? Far from this 

 there is to be seen only a small and gradual growth of the 

 appreciation of good, and with it a persistence of wrong do- 

 ing, and consequent death, which is amazing. The effect of 

 this knowledge of evil, and foreknowledge of death, upon 

 the conduct of humanity is at first only partial and sur- 

 prisingly small. We may see in barbarous races a stoic dis- 

 regard of death which is little different from the absolute 

 ignorance of it shown by the lower animals. Then little by 

 little there appears in some people a cultivated belief in a 

 hereafter as a compensation for suffering, which may be an 

 intuitive perception or may be intellectual wisdom. This 

 offers to the individual life an added value in an aspiration 



