THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 149 



remote period some degree of instinctive love and sympathy 

 for his fellows. "We are indeed all conscious that we do pos- 

 sess such sympathetic feelings;" but our consciousness does 

 not tell us whether they are instinctive, having originated 

 long ago in the same manner as with the lower animals, or 

 whether they have been acquired by each of us during our 

 early years. As man is a social animal, it is almost certain 

 that he would inherit a tendency to be faithful to his com- 

 rades, and obedient to the leader of his tribe, for these quali- 

 ties are common to most social animals. He would conse- 

 quently possess some capacity for self-command. He would 

 from an inherited tendency be willing to defend, in concert 

 with others, his fellow-men; and would be ready to aid them 

 in any way which did not too greatly interfere with his own 

 welfare or his own strong desires. 



The social animals which stand at the bottom of the scale 

 are guided almost exclusively, and those which stand higher 

 in the scale are largely guided, by special instincts in the aid 

 which they give to the members of the same community; 

 but they are likewise in part impelled by mutual love and 

 sympathy, assisted apparently by some amount of reason. 

 Although man, as just remarked, has no special instincts 

 to tell him how to aid his fellow- men, he still has the im- 

 pulse, and with his improved intellectual faculties would 

 naturally be much guided in this respect by reason and 

 experience. Instinctive sympathy would also cause him to 

 value highly the approbation of his fellows; for, as Mr. Bain 

 has clearly shown, " the love of praise and the strong feeling 

 of glory, and the still stronger horror of scorn and infamy, 

 "are due to the workings of sympathy. " Consequently man 

 would be influenced in the highest degree by the wishes, 

 approbation, and blame of his fellow-men, as expressed by 



°' Hume remarks (' 'An Inquiry' Concerning the Principles of Morals, ' ' edit, 

 of 1151, p. 132), "There seems a necessity for confessing that the happiness 

 and misery of others are not spectacles altogether indifferent to us, but that 

 the view of the former . . . communicates a secret joy; the appearance 

 of the latter . . . throws a melancholy damp over the imagination. " 



^* "Mental and Moral Science," 1868, p. 254. 



