166 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



moral rules. The liigher are founded on tlie social instincts, 

 and relate to the welfare of others. They are supported by 

 the approbation of our fellow-men and by reason. The lower 

 rules., though some of them when implying self-sacrifice 

 hardly deserve to be called lower, relate chiefly to self, and 

 arise from public opinion, matured by experience and culti- 

 vation; for they are not practiced by rude tribes. 



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 in- 

 stincts and sympathies 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 pre- 

 vent 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 

 unfortunately shows us how long it is before we look at 

 them as our fellow- creatures. Sympathy beyond the con- 

 fines 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 toward their pets. How little the 

 old Romans knew of it is shown by their abhorrent gladia- 

 torial 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 sympathies 

 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 event- 

 ually becomes incorporated in public opinion. 



The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we 

 recognize 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 ns. ' ' " Whatever makes any bad 



*> Tennyson, "IdyUs of the Eing," p. 244. 



