THE DESCENT OR OBIGIN OF MAN 157 



greatest abhorrence, in this agreeing exactly with certain 

 tribes of North America. When the question is put in 

 either district, is it worse to kill a girl of a foreign tribe 

 or to marry a girl of one's own, an answer just opposite 

 to ours would be given without hesitation." " We may, 

 therefore, reject the belief, lately insisted on by some writ- 

 ers, that the abhorrence of incest is due to our possessing a 

 special Grod-implanted conscience. On the whole it is intel- 

 ligible that a man urged by so powerful a sentiment as re- 

 morse, though arising as above explained, should be led to 

 act in a manner which he has been taught to believe serves 

 as an expiation, such as delivering himself up to justice. 



Man, prompted by his conscience, will through long 

 habit acquire such perfect self-command, that his desires 

 and passions will at last yield instantly and without a 

 struggle to his social sympathies and instincts, including 

 his feeling for the judgment of his fellows. The still hun- 

 gry or the still revengeful man will not think of stealing 

 food or of wreaking his vengeance. It is possible, or, as 

 we shall hereafter see, even probable, that the habit of self- 

 command may, like other habits, be inherited. Thus at last 

 man comes to feel, through acquired and perhaps inherited 

 habit, that it is best for him to obey his more persistent im- 

 pulses. The imperious word ought seems merely to imply 

 the consciousness of the existence of a rule of conduct, how- 

 ever it may have originated. Formerly it must have been 

 often vehemently urged that an insulted gentleman ought to 

 fight a duel. We even say that a pointer ought to point, and 

 a retriever to retrieve game. If they fail to do so, they fail 

 in their duty, and act wrongly. X 



If any desire or instinct leading to an action opposed 

 to the good of others still appears, when recalled to mind, 

 as strong as, or stronger than, the social instinct, a man 

 will feel no keen regret at having followed it; but he will 

 be conscious that if his conduct were known to his fellows, 



" F. B. Tylor in "Contemporary Eeview," April, IStS, p. 101. 



