352 THE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION 
were all or any of these faculties first developed, when 
they could have been of no possible use to man in 
his early stages of barbarism? How could “ natural 
selection,” or survival of the fittest in the struggle 
for existence, at all favour the development of mental 
powers so entirely removed from the material neces- 
sities of savage men, and which even now, with our 
comparatively high civilization, are, in their farthest 
developments, in advance of the age, and appear to 
have relation rather to the future of the race than 
to its actual status? 
Difficulty as to the Origin of the Moral Sense. 
Exactly the same difficulty arises, when we endeavour 
to account for the development of the moral sense or 
conscience in savage man; for although the practice of 
benevolence, honesty, or truth, may have been useful 
to the tribe possessing these virtues, that does not at 
all account for the peculiar sanctity, attached to actions 
which each tribe considers right and moral, as con- 
trasted with the very different feelings with which 
they regard what is merely useful. The utilitarian 
hypothesis (which is the theory of natural selection 
applied to the mind) seems inadequate to account for 
the development of the moral sense. This subject has 
been recently much discussed, and I will here only 
give one example to illustrate my argument. The” 
utilitarian sanction for truthfulness is by no means, 
very powerful or universal. Few laws enforce it. No 
very severe reprobation follows untruthfulness. In all 
