DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL SENSE. 203 



with some degree of clearness the reason of this differ- 

 ence. 



Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, can 

 not avoid reflection : past impressions and images are 

 incessantly and clearly passing through his mind. Now, 

 with those animals which live permanently in a body, the 

 social instincts are ever present and persistent. Such 

 animals are always ready to utter the danger-signal, to 

 defend the community, and to give aid to their fellows in 

 accordance with their habits ; they feel at all times, with- 

 out the stimulus of any special passion or desire, some 

 degree of love and sympathy for them ; they are unhappy 

 if long separated from them, and always happy to be 

 again in their company. So it is with ourselves. Even 

 when we are quite alone, how often do we think with 

 pleasure or pain of what others think of us — of their 

 imagined approbation or disapprobation ! — and this all 

 follows from sympathy, a fundamental element of the 

 social instincts. A man who possessed no trace of such 

 instincts would be an unnatural monster. On the other 

 hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion such as 

 vengeance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a time 

 be fully satisfied. 'Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly pos- 

 sible, to call up with complete vividness the feeling, for 

 instance, of hunger ; nor, indeed, as has often been re- 

 marked, of any suffering. The instinct of self-preserva- 

 tion is not felt except in the presence of danger; and 

 many a coward has thought himself brave until he has 

 met his enemy face to face. The wish for another man's 

 property is perhaps as persistent a desire as any that can 

 be named ; but even in this case the satisfaction of actual 

 possession is generally a weaker feeling than the desire : 

 many a thief, if not an habitual one, after success has 

 wondered why he stole some article. 



