198 



it may be that no two navigators could be found exactly to 

 agree as to what that route is. Because one will take the 

 worst route for the best one_, and that in perfect sincerity it 

 does not follow that the worst is the best, or that a man may 

 choose any one of them to equal advantage if he is only sincere 

 in doing so. There is one way of acting which is in itself the 

 right way, as certainly as there is- one route between the two 

 ports I have mentioned which is the best of all. 



Darwin seems to teach that the strongest impression is our 

 only rule in morals. The idea is in keeping with his strangely 

 defective notion of what a moral being really is, coupled with 

 his equally defective notion as to the unchanging right. He 

 says, ^''Amoral being is one who is capable of comparing his 

 past and future actions or motives, and of approving or disap- 

 proving of them.-'^ Here he misses entirely that by which 

 morality, or moral nature, has its significance. A thief, for in- 

 stance, compares his past clumsy attempt to pick a pocket, on 

 account of which he has got lodged in prison, with the much 

 more dexterous practice by which he hopes to get the money 

 and escape the next time ! He exceedingly disapproves of his 

 past action, and as strongly approves of the future — is he 

 therefore a moral being ? The right and wrong of his 

 conduct escapes him as entirely as it does the dog which worries 

 a sheep simply because of his impressions.^^ Moral nature 

 in its essence is seen in neither of the cases, though in both 

 Mr. Darwin-'s definition might be realized. That thought of 

 the unchanging right on which morality hinges seems to have 

 dropt out of his remarkable mind. 



This is not the case because Mr. Darwin is unaware of the 

 importance of the moral sense. He says, ^' Of all the differ- 

 ences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or 

 conscience is by far the most important."* In common with 

 many others, he fails to distinguish between the feeling and 

 the judgment ; but what is vastly more serious he fails to see 

 the true nature of both. ^' Acting for the public good^^ is his 

 highest idea of duty, and public opinion his highest view of 

 the standard of that duty. The habit of acting according to 

 public opinion is with him conscience.''^ He says, If, for 

 instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under pre- 

 cisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a 

 doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker bees, 

 think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would 

 strive to kill their daughters, and no one would think of inter- 

 fering. Nevertheless, the bee, or any other social animal, would. 



* Descent of Man, vol. i. ed. 1871, p. 70. 



