DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL SENSE. 205 



and then returned in higli condition ; and his other wife 

 told Dr. Landor that her husband had taken the life of a 

 woman belonging to a distant tribe ; but it was impossi- 

 ble to obtain legal evidence of the act. The breach of a 

 rule held sacred by the tribe will thus, as it seems, give 

 rise to the deepest feelings, and this quite apart from the 

 social instincts, excepting in so far as the rule is grounded 

 on the judgment of the community. How so many 

 strange superstitions have arisen throughout the world 

 we know not ; nor can we tell how some real and great 

 crimes, such as incest, have come to be held in an abhor- 

 rence (which is not, however, quite universal) by the 

 lowest savages. It is even doubtful whether in some 

 tribes incest would be looked on with greater horror than 

 would the marriage of a man with a woman bearing the 

 same name, though not a relation. " To violate this law 

 is a crime which the Australians hold in the greatest ab- 

 horrence, in this agreeing exactly with certain tribes of 

 Iforth 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 

 writers, that the abhorrence of incest is due to our pos- 

 sessing a special God-implanted conscience. 



DBVELOPMBKT OF SBLF-COKTKOL. 



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 hungry or the still revengeful 



