MORAL SENSE. 119 



As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united 

 into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each 

 individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sym- 

 pathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally 

 unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an 

 artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men 

 of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from 

 him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience un- 

 fortunately shows us how long it is, before we look at them as 

 our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that 

 is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest 

 moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except 

 towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is 

 shown by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea 

 of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the 

 Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with 

 which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sym- 

 pathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until 

 they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue 

 is honored and practiced by some few men, it spreads through 

 instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes 

 incorporated in public opinion. 



The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recog- 

 nize that we ought to control our thoughts, and "not even in 

 "inmost thought to think again the sins that made the past so 

 "pleasant to us."" Whatever makes any bad action familiar to 

 the mind, renders its performance by so much the easier. As 

 Marcus Aurelius long ago said, "Such as are thy habitual 

 "thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the 

 "soul is dyed by the thoughts."*^ 



Our great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, has recently explained 

 his views on the moral sense. He says," "I believe that the 

 "experiences of utility organized and consolidated through all 

 "past generations of the human race, have been producing cor- 

 "responding modifications, which, by continued transmission and 

 "accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral 

 "intuition — certain emotions responding to right and wrong con- 

 "duct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences 

 "of utility." There is not the least inherent improbability, as it 

 seems to me, in virtuous tendencies being more or less strongly 

 inherited; for, not to mention the various dispositions and habits 

 transmitted by many of our domestic animals to their offspring, 



" Tennyson, 'Idylls of the King,' p. 244. 



« "The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus,' Bng. trans- 

 lat., 2nd edit., 1869, p. 112. Marcus Aurelius was born A. D. 121. 

 " Letter to Mr. Mill in Bain's 'Mental and Moral Science,' 18;S, p. 722. 



