Chap. III. MORAL SENSE. 101 
ficial barrier to prevent liis sympathies extending to the 
men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are 
separated from him by great differences in appearance 
or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long 
it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. 
Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity 
to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest 
moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, 
except towards their pets. How little the old Romans 
knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial 
exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I 
could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the 
Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which 
man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our 
sympathies becoming more tender and more widely dif- 
fused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. 
As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some 
few men, it spreads through instruction and example to 
the young, and eventually through public opinion. 
The highest stage in moral culture at which we can 
arrive, is when we recognise that we ought to control 
our thoughts, and “ not even in inmost thought to think 
“ again the sins that made the past so pleasant to us.” 34 
Whatever makes any bad action familiar to the mind, 
renders its performance by so much the easier. As 
Marcus Aurelius long ago said, “ Such as are thy habi- 
“ tual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy 
“ mind ; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.” 35 
Our great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, has recently 
explained his views on the moral sense. He says, 36 44 1 
34 Tennyson, * Idylls of the King,’ p. 244. * 
35 ‘The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus/ Eng. 
translate, 2nd edit., 1869, p. 112. Marcus Aurelius was born a.d. 121. 
36 Letter to Mr. Mill in Bain’s ‘Mental and Moral Science/ 1868, 
p. 722. 
