254 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



How can the useful experience of animals that are 

 destitute of all mental powers produce animals that 

 have these powers? 



No animal acts with a clear mental conception that 

 what it is about to do will be useful to itself or oth- 

 ers, and, having acted, it can not understand that 

 what it has done is useful. The moral sentiment 

 could not, therefore, have been evolved in animals 

 from the idea of the useful, for this idea does not 

 exist in animals. 



It is evident that not only experience of the useful, 

 but also that a clear mental conception of the useful, 

 must precede the moral sentiment if the latter has 

 been evolved, as claimed. 



We do not know that animals do things from a 

 knowledge that what they do will be useful. They 

 are driven by instinct, not knowing why they act, nor 

 what will be the results of their conduct. 



A wild fox hunts because he is hungry, and not be- 

 cause he feels or knows that it will be useful. He 

 does not say before starting that if he does not hunt 

 he and his offspring that are dependent on him will 

 perish. Nor is there evidence that he hunts because 

 he anticipates that it will give him pleasure to eat 

 what he may capture; but he does so because he is 

 driven by blind instinct. 



Therefore, before talking about evolving conscience 

 from useful experience, it would be well to prove 

 that animals have well-defined ideas of the useful, and 

 that these ideas, aside from instinct, are motives to 

 action. 



The instincts of animals are sufficient for them in 

 their narrow spheres. They enable them to compete 

 with other forms that are endowed with instincts, 

 and, consequently, there was no demand for animals 



