(a) Several further considerations may be offered to account for the growth of what we call humanity, (i) The long non-age of human children is favourable to the attachments of family life, and such attachments may under certain conditions be capable of extension beyond the family; but I cannot trace the whole flood of altruistic regard to the sole source of maternal or parental love. (ii) Friendliness and the disposition to mutual aid are so useful to a hunting-pack that is not merely seasonal but permanent (as I take ours to have been), both to individuals and to the pack as a whole, within certain limits (as that the wounded, sick, or aged must not amount to an encumbrance), that we may suppose natural selection to have favoured the growth of effective sympathy, not merely in mutual defence, but so far as it is actually found at present in backward tribes. It nowhere seems to be excessive; and its manifestation in some civilised races seems to depend not upon a positive increase of benevolence in the generality, but (iii) upon the breaking down here and there of conditions that elsewhere oppose and inhibit it. Thus the generosity, mercy and magnanimity that constitute the chivalrous ideal, depend (I believe) upon the attainment by a class of such undisputed superiority that there is no occasion for jealousy or rivalry in relation to other classes; for should the superiority be disputed, these virtues quickly disappear. Similarly, what have been called the “slavish virtues” of charity, humility, long-suffering may arise amongst those who are free from rivalry, because they have no hope of aggrandisement in wealth or honour, and who have indeed suffered long. With the interfusion of classes, their virtues interfuse; for they have a common root, and are active, provided that circumstances do not inhibit them.
(iv) But since in individuals our complex nature varies in all directions, and amongst the rest in the direction of benevolence; and since any organ or quality that varies is apt to continue to do so, and may go on varying even beyond the limits of biological utility; why in human life may not this happen with benevolence (or with any other passion or virtue); so that in some men it expands with wonderful richness and beauty even to the sacrifice of themselves—nay, by excessive clemency or generosity, even to the injury of the tribe or of the race?
(b) The moral sense or conscience has been discussed by Darwin[78] “exclusively from the side of natural history”; so as this is the way of considering human nature in the present book, I shall epitomise his account of it; which seems to be true, and to which I see little to add. He finds four chief conditions of the growth of a moral sense: (a) the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to sympathise with them and to help them. (b) When the mind is highly developed, images of past actions and motives continually recur; “and that feeling of dissatisfaction or even misery which invariably results … from any dissatisfied instinct would arise as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression”—as with anger or greed. (c) After language has been acquired, public opinion can be expressed, and becomes the paramount guide of action; though still “our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy.” (d) Social instinct, sympathy and obedience to the judgment of the community are strengthened by the formation of habit. Darwin then proves successively these four positions.
Seeing the stress here laid upon sympathy, it may make the matter clearer if we observe that the word occurs in different senses—for the participation in another’s satisfaction or distress (emotional sympathy) and readiness to help (effective sympathy); and these are the meanings under (a), the first of the above heads: and, again, for the knowledge that there are ideas or judgments in another’s mind together with approval or disapproval of our actions; and this is the meaning under (c), the third head. But knowledge of another’s thoughts is not sympathy, except so far as, being accompanied with assent to his judgment, there is participation in his feelings of approval or disapproval; and, if we dissent from his judgment, there may, indeed, be perceptive sympathy as to his feelings, but there is no emotional sympathy or participation in them—there is rather fear or resentment. It is necessary to bear in mind that perception of another’s feelings, participation in them and impulse to help or relieve are separable processes, and that perceptive sympathy is as active in cruelty as in generosity or mercy.
It may be added that (b), the second of the four conditions assigned by Darwin as determining the growth of the moral sense or conscience, accounts more especially for “remorse of conscience”; and that (c), the third condition, explains that tone of authority attaching to conscience on which Bishop Butler laid so much stress.[79]
How early the moral sense began to form itself in our stock cannot be estimated because it must have been a very gradual process. Probably the rudiments of it appeared in the family life of the ape even before our differentiation; and the authoritative character of conscience established itself under the discipline of the hunting-pack before there was much development of mind (for dogs know what theft is), and under pressure of a public opinion that managed to express itself without language. In an original and suggestive book[80] Mr. Trotter has shown that a herd (pack, tribe or nation) necessarily approves of whatever actions are done in its interests as good or right, and disapproves of the contrary actions as bad or wrong. Confident that its beliefs and customs are good and right, the pack persecutes dissenters and nonconformists. “Good” is a relative idea. “ ‘The good are good warriors and hunters,’ said a Pawnee chief; whereupon the author who mentions the saying remarks that this would also be the opinion of a wolf if he could express it.”[81] Hence we may guess the principal contents of the primitive categorical imperative. The study of Ethnology and History enables us to trace the modification and enrichment of those contents under varying conditions of culture, and for the results of such study I refer to Edward Westermarck’s Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.
(c) After the introduction of agriculture, the stress of natural selection was in certain directions altered. At first, indeed, most agricultural work, probably, was done by women; but in its progress it fell extensively into the hands of men; and then advantage accrued to those tribes that were capable of steady industry and prudence. The new employment decreased aggression on the principle that “had Alexander been holding the plough, he could not have run his friend Clitus through with a spear.” The sick and aged were now less an encumbrance than they had been to hunters. Those who could not endure a settled life wandered away in their old pursuits. The more aggressive clans slaughtered one another in the vendetta. Social pressure and hanging eliminated many of the more idle, improvident, dishonest and unruly, whose instincts resisted “accommodation.” The more neighbourly and co-operative tended to predominate. As civilisation intensifies, the numerous ways of getting a livelihood, which (as we have seen) derive their motive-force from the spirit of the pack, gratify that spirit under so many disguises and with so little direct personal collision, as to be compatible with a great deal of friendliness and benevolence; and co-operation, direct