198 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



soon as lie saw his friend in peril, lie rushed to the rescue, 

 and by screams and bites so distracted the baboon that 

 the man was able to escape, after, as the surgeon thought, 

 running great risk of his life. 



Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other 

 qualities connected with the social instincts, which in us 

 would be called moral ; and I agree with Agassiz that 

 dogs possess something very like a conscience. 



P loT With mankind, selfishness, experience, and 

 imitation, probably add, as Mr. Bain has 

 shown, to the power of sympathy ; for we are led by the 

 hope of receiving good in return to perform acts of sym- 

 pathetic kindness to others ; and sympathy is much 

 strengthened by habit. In however complex a manner this 

 feeling may have originated, as it is one of high impor- 

 tance to all those animals which aid and defend one an- 

 other, it will have been increased through natural selec- 

 tion ; for those communities which included the greatest 

 number of the most sympathetic members would flourish 

 best and rear the greatest number of offspring. 



It is, however, impossible to decide in many cases 

 whether certain social instincts have been acquired 

 through natural selection, or are the indirect result of 

 other instincts and faculties, such as sympathy, reason, 

 experience, and a tendency to imitation ; or, again, 

 whether they are simply the result of long-continued 

 habit. So remarkable an instinct as the placing sentinels 

 to warn the community of danger can hardly have been 

 the indirect result of any of these faculties ; it must, 

 therefore, have been directly acquired. On the other 

 hand, the habit followed by the males of some social 

 animals of defending the community, and of attacking 

 their enemies or their prey in concert, may perhaps have 



