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THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[December 



offered to men and a new standard of morality set up. Some beliefs 

 which had hitherto been mere guesses received confirmation, of which 

 two have a special connection with our subject — the belief in God and 

 in a future life. Both these doctrines had influenced ethical sentiment 

 for centuries before they were authoritatively proclaimed by our Lord, 

 and no study of the history of morality can be profitably carried on 

 unless this fact is kept constantly in mind. It is probable that some 

 faint conception of a future life was formed by Palaeolithic man, and 

 such a belief, whatever its origin and however erroneous it might be, 

 could not fail to influence conduct. When after many generations 

 the transition to the Neolithic civilization had been effected, and man's 

 greater control over the powers of nature had materially restricted the 

 extent to which natural selection controlled human development, the 

 influence of religious belief on social organization and ethics became 

 correspondingly greater. 



Whilst, then, we recognize that sympathy for his fellows, in the 

 possession of which man resembles all other social animals, forms the 

 groundwork of morality, and is a direct result of social instincts, we 

 see that the widening of that sympathy until it extends not merely to 

 members of the same society but to the larger community of the 

 nation, to other kindred nations, to all mankind, however diverse in 

 habit or breed, and which finds further expression in kindness to the 

 lower animals, has been mainly due to religion. This sentiment, which 

 we usually, though not quite accurately, speak of as Humanity, is the 

 highest stage yet reached in the upward movement which began 

 millions of years ago amongst the primitive protists. From the lowly 

 amoeba which unconsciously shrinks franl danger to the saint who 

 consciously shrinks from the commission of a moral offence, there is an 

 immense distance, a distance, however, which has been traversed by 

 slow degrees, the principal stages in the progress being visible enough, 

 save to those who, " having eyes, see not." 



In reviewing this progress we have seen that sociality has probably 

 had two sources, that it has arisen under two kinds of circumstances. 

 Sometimes it has been due mainly to the pressure of external dangers 

 acting on organisms aggregated within a small area. Such pressure 

 may have existed before the organisms had reached the conscious level, 

 and as they passed upwards through the sub-conscious to a higher 

 grade sympathy may have been the earliest sentiment manifested in the 

 nascent consciousness of the species. On the other hand, in many 

 cases sympathy appears to be an extension of family affection ; the 

 sexual instinct has given rise successively to love - of mates, love of 

 young, and at a much later stage to love of others outside the family. 



It is not always possible to assign sociality as it exists in modern 

 species to one or the other cause, for in the past history of that species 



