IX 
LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 
201 
furnished me with similar, although lest severely tested, 
instances ; and we cannot avoid asking, How is it that in 
these few cases “experiences of utility” have left such an 
overwhelming impression, while in so many others they have 
left none ? The experiences of savage men as regards the 
utility of truth must, in the long run, be pretty nearly equal. 
How is it, then, that in some cases the result is a sanctity 
which overrides all considerations of personal advantage, while 
in others there is hardly a rudiment of such a feeling ? 
The intuitional theory, which I am now advocating, ex- 
plains this by the supposition that there is a feeling — a sense 
of right and wrong — in our nature, antecedent to and inde- 
pendent of experiences of utility. Where free play is 
allowed to the relations between man and man, this feeling 
attaches itself to those acts of universal utility or self- 
sacrifice which are the products of our affections and sym- 
pathies, and which we term moral ; while it may be, and 
often is, perverted, to give the same sanction to acts of narrow 
and conventional utility which are really immoral, — as when 
the Hindoo will tell a He, but will sooner starve than eat 
unclean food, and looks upon the marriage of adult females 
as gross immoraHty. 
The strength of the moral feeling will depend upon 
individual or racial constitution, and on education and 
habit ; — the acts to which its sanctions are applied will 
depend upon how far the simple feeHngs and affections of 
our nature have been modified by custom, by law, or by 
religion. 
It is difficult to conceive that such an intense and mystical 
feeling of right and wrong (so intense as to overcome all ideas 
of personal advantage or utility), could have been developed 
out of accumulated ancestral experiences of utility; and 
still more difficult to understand how feelings developed by 
one set of utilities could be transferred to acts of which the 
utility was partial, imaginary, or altogether absent. But if a 
moral sense is an essential part of our nature, it is easy to 
see that its sanction may often be given to acts which are 
useless or immoral ; just as the natural appetite for drink 
is perverted by the drunkard into the means of his de- 
struction. 
