MORAL SENSE. 109 



clearly passing through his mind. Now with those animals 

 which live permanently in a body, the social Instincts are ever 

 present and persistent. Such animals are always ready to utter 

 the danger-signal, to defend the community, and to give aid to 

 their fellows In accordance with their habits; they feel at all 

 times, without the stimulus of any special passion or desire, 

 some degree of love and sympathy for them; they are unhappy 

 if long separated from them, and always happy to b6 again in 

 their company. So it is with ourselves. Even when we are 

 quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what 

 others think of us, — of their imagined approbation or disappro- 

 bation; and this all follows from sympathy, a fundamental 

 element of the social instincts. A man who possessed no trace 

 of such instincts would be an unnatural monster. On the other 

 hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion such as ven- 

 geance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a time be fully 

 satisfied. Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly possible, to call up 

 with complete vividness the feeling, for instance, of hunger; nor 

 indeed, as has often been remarked, of any suffering. The in- 

 stinct of self-preservation is not felt except in the presence of 

 danger; and many a coward has thought himself brave until he 

 has met his enemy face to face. The wish for another man's 

 property is perhaps as persistent a desire as any that can be 

 named; but even in this case the satisfaction of actual pos- 

 session is generally a weaker feeling than the desire: many a 

 thief, if not a habitual one, after success has wondered why he 

 stole some article." 



^^ Enmity or hatred seems also to be a highly persistent feeling, per- 

 haps more so than any other that can be named. Envy is defined as 

 hatred of another for some excellence or success; and Bacon Insists 

 (Essay ix.), "Of all other affections envy is the most importune and 

 "continual." Dogs are very apt to hate both strange men and strange 

 dogs, especially if they live near at hand, but do not belong to the same 

 family, tribe, or clan; this feeling would thus seem to be innate and' 

 is certainly a most persistent one. It seems to be the complement and 

 converse of the true social instinct. Prom what we hear of savages, 

 it would appear that something of the same kind holds good with them. 

 If this be so, it would be a small step in any one to transfer such 

 feelings to any member of the same tribe if he had done him an 

 injury and had become his enemy. Nor is it probable that the prim- 

 itive conscience would reproach a man for injuring his enemy: rather 

 it would reproach him if he had not revenged himself. To do good in 

 return for evil, to love your enemy, is a height of morality to which 

 It may be doubted whether the social instincts would, by themselves, 

 have ever led us. It is necessary that these instincts, together with 

 sympathy, should have been highly cultivated and extended by the aid 

 of reason, instruction, and the love or fear of God before any such 

 golden rule would ever be thought of and obeyed. 



