164 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Part I. 
first impulse to benevolent actions. Habits, moreover, 
followed during many generations probably tend to be 
inherited. 
But there is another and much more powerful sti- 
mulus to the development of the social virtues, namely, 
the praise and the blame of our fellow-men. The love 
of approbation and the dread of infamy, as well as the 
bestowal of praise or blame, are primarily due, as we 
have seen in the third chapter, to the instinct of sym- 
pathy; and this instinct no doubt was originally acquired, 
like all the other social instincts, through natural selec- 
tion. At how early a period the progenitors of man, in 
the course of their development, became capable of feel- 
ing and being impelled by the praise or blame of their 
fellow-creatures, we cannot, of course, say. But it appears 
that even dogs appreciate encouragement, praise, and 
blame. The rudest savages feel the sentiment of glory, 
as they clearly show by preserving the trophies of their 
prowess, by their habit of excessive boasting, and even 
by the extreme care which they take of their personal 
appearance and decorations ; for unless they regarded 
the opinion of their comrades, such habits would be 
senseless. 
They certainly feel shame at the breach of some of 
their lesser rules ; but how 7 far they experience remorse 
is doubtful. I was at first surprised that I could not re- 
collect any recorded instances of this feeling in savages ; 
and Sir J. Lubbock 6 states that he know r s of none. 
But if we banish from our minds all cases given in 
novels and plays and in death-bed confessions made 
to priests, I doubt whether many of us have actually 
witnessed remorse; though v r e may have often seen 
shame and contrition for smaller offences. Remorse is 
6 ‘ Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, p. 265. 
