MORAL SENSE. 95 



consummate ability; and my sole excuse for touching on it, is 

 the impossibility of here passing it over; and because, as far as I 

 know, no one has approached it exclusively from the side of 

 natural history. The investigation possesses, also, some inde- 

 pendent interest, as an attempt to see how far the study of the 

 lower animals throws light on one of the highest psychical facul- 

 ties of man. 



The following proposition seems to me in a high degree prob- 

 able — namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well- 

 marked social instincts,^ the parental and filial affections being 

 here included, would Inevitably acquire a moral sense or con- 

 science, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, 

 or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social 

 instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its 

 fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to 

 perform various services for them. The services may be of a 

 definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only 

 a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, 

 to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings 

 and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of 

 the same species, only to those of the same association. Secondly, 

 as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, 

 images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly 

 passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling 

 of dissatisfaction, or even misery, which invariably results, as we 



name, and those of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, Sir J. Lub- 

 bock, and others, might be added. 



^ Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a, social animal ('Psy- 

 chological Enquiries,' 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, "ought 

 "not this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral 

 "sense?" Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as 

 they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his 

 celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism,' (1864, pp. 45, 46), of the social feelings 

 as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of senti- 

 "ment for utilitarian morality." Again he says, "Like the other ac- 

 "quired capacities above referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of 

 "our nature, is a natural out-growth from it; capable, like them, in a 

 "certain small degree of springing up spontaneously." But in oppo- 

 sition to all this, he also remarks, "if, as is my own belief, the mcral 

 "feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less 

 "natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ at all from so 

 profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feel- 

 ings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should 

 they not be so in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, 'The Emotions and 

 the Will,' 1865, p. 481) and others believe that the moral sense is ac- 

 quired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory 

 of evolution this is at least extremely improbable. The ignoring of all 

 transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter 

 judg-ed as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill. 



