DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOEAL SENSE. 195 



FEOM THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS TO THE MORAL 8EKSE. 



The following proposition seems to me in 

 a high degree probable — ^namely, that any ani- 

 mal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, 

 the parental and filial affections being here included, 

 would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as 

 soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or 

 nearly as well, developed as in man. For, firstly, the 

 social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the 

 society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sym- 

 pathy with them, and to perform various services for 

 them. The services may be of a definite and evidently 

 instinctive nature ; or there may be only a wish and 

 readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, to 

 aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feel- 

 ings and services are by no means extended to all the in- 

 dividuals of the same species, only to those of the same 

 association. Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had 

 become highly developed, images of all past actions and 

 motives would be incessantly passing through the brain 

 of each individual ; and that feeling of dissatisfaction, or 

 even misery, which invariably results, as we shall hereafter 

 see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as 

 it was perceived that the enduring and always present 

 social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the 

 - time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor 

 leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that 

 many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in 

 their nature of short duration ; and, after being satisfied, 

 are not readily or vividly recalled. Thirdly, after the 

 power of language had been acquired, and the wishes of 

 the community could be expressed, the common opinion 

 how each member ought to act for the public good would 



