410 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



they do with us, and conscience pricks them in regard to 

 other actions. It is not necessary to go into details. 

 One can read in any manual of anthropology that in 

 many races murder, pillage, and even theft are not 

 regarded as evil ; that an Indian will feel remorse, for 

 instance, because he has not killed anyone, but never 

 because he has done so. Adultery, again, is often so 

 general that the neglect of it is regarded as a disgrace, 

 and it is well known how the men offer their wives to 

 their guests in many races. The cannibal never feels 

 remorse for having eaten anyone. On the other hand, 

 many savages feel remorse for an action that is in our 

 eyes indifferent or even good. In fine, one needs little 

 acquaintance with ethnography to see that "good" or 

 "bad" have not a common value for all men, and that 

 all men have not got an inner voice that tells them what 

 is "good." 



Educated people have a more sensitive conscience 

 than those of a lower condition, and this again is ex- 

 plained by natural selection. They usually marry 

 refined partners ; at all events they rarely choose those 

 with crude feelings and a disposition to gross conduct 

 without the check of remorse. Thus, amongst the 

 educated, the individuals with the gentler instincts are 

 always selected for reproduction, and therefore 

 those in whom any violent deed will be followed by 

 remorse. 



We could expand this idea much further, but that 

 is not our purpose. We wished merely to show that 

 conscience offers no difficulty to the man who accepts 



