FIFTH day's sitting. 127 



view of morality from what you did at the outset. You 

 have but just spoken of conscience as " the most noble of 

 all the attributes of man, leading him, without a moment's 

 hesitation, to risk his life for that of a fellow creature." 

 Now you suppose it possible that sisters might be impelled 

 by conscience to murder their brothers, and mothers their 

 daughters ! 



Darwin. This doubtless is " an extreme case," my Lord, 

 but, if men were reared under precisely the same con- 

 ditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that the 

 members of the same family would think it a saxjred duty 

 to kill one another, and that no one would think of 

 interfering. 



Lord G. You reason in a most extraordinary manner, Mr. 

 Darwin. You suppose an impossible case, and you expound 

 to us a system of morals founded on this impossible case, 

 which morals are not morals at all, but acts arising from 

 instinctive impulses, and followed by different feelings 

 as the animal compares the impressions that pass through 

 its mind one with another. But all this is entirely 

 imaginary. 



Homo. I call it reasoning with the imagination, my 

 Lord, an operation which Mr. Darwin performs with great 

 facility. But, in his supposed case, the development goes 

 the wrong way, for it makes man develop into a bee, 

 instead of making the bee develop into a man. Mr. 

 Darwin might suppose other cases quite as probable as the 

 one before us. He might suppose man reared under pre- 

 cisely the same conditions as rooks, or jackdaws, or 

 starlings ; or as dogs, horses, sheep, or rabbits — all of 

 which animals he goes on to speak of as social in thefr 

 habits — and he might exhibit to us a new system of morals 

 as springing from each case. We should have thus 



