€hap. III. 
MORAL SENSE. 
85 ' 
for their common defence. It is no argument against 
savage man being a social animal, that the tribes in- 
habiting adjacent districts are almost always at war 
with each other ; for the social instincts never extend 
to all the individuals of the same species. Judging 
from the analogy of the greater number of the Quad- 
rumana, it is probable that the early ape-like pro- 
genitors of man were likewise social ; but this is not of 
much importance for us. Although man, as he now 
<exists, has few special instincts, having lost any which 
his early progenitors may have possessed, this is no 
reason why he should not have retained from an ex- 
tremely remote period some degree of instinctive love 
and sympathy for his fellows. We are indeed all con- 
scious that we do possess such sympathetic feelings ; 19 
but our consciousness does not tell us whether they are 
instinctive, having originated long ago in the same 
manner as with the lower animals, or whether they have 
been acquired by each of us during our early years. 
As man is a social animal, it is also probable that he 
would inherit a tendency to be faithful to his comrades, 
for this quality is common to most social animals. He 
would in like manner possess some capacity for self- 
command, and perhaps of obedience to the leader of 
the community. He would from an inherited tendency 
still be willing to defend, in concert with others, his 
fellow-men, and would be ready to aid them in any 
way which did not too greatly interfere with his own 
welfare or his own strong desires. 
The social animals which stand at the bottom of the 
19 Hume remarks (‘An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,’ 
*edit. of 1751, p. 132), “ there seems a necessity for confessing that the 
“ happiness and misery of others are not spectacles altogether in- 
“ different to us, but that the view of the former . . . communicates a 
secret joy; the appearance of the latter . . . throws a melancholy 
damp over the imagination.” 
