Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/388

 372 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

God" speaking directly in human consciousness. The evolu- tionist may undertake to explain it by a process of "heredity and natural selection," claiming that this impelling force either grows out of the fear of punishment, or else appears as a phase in the development of the sympathies.

But, whatever may have been its sources, when the impelling force of conscience speaks or acts, it is one force or one voice, rather than many forces or many voices, that we feel within our- selves. At the time when the moral sense asserts itself I do not think we are conscious of its possible complex origin. We may writhe under it, shrink from it or welcome it. But we do not at such times analyze it or take it to pieces. The man who is goaded by remorse over a crime of which he has been guilty is not relieved very much by trying to reason away his con- science. When we are quite at peace within ourselves, we may analyze it, and fancy that we have caused it by that process to dis- solve and vanish out of sight ; but it is pretty sure to come back again, when the occasion arises which normally calls it forth.

At the point when the moral sense, after beginning in vague scruples, finally assumes the further element of authority as a single impelling force within ourselves, we may say that the story of its evolution takes on a new character. It then becomes essentially a department in the study of the science of sociology. We come now to the great subject of heredity. Whether or not acquired traits are transmitted in the individual texture of living human creatures, we are perfectly convinced that sentiments and opinions are handed down from age to age, that there is an inheritance through the social medium of what is done or said on the part of individuals.

It is just here, of course, where the human race stands head and shoulders above the whole animal kingdom. This is one cause which leads to such a marked contrast in the story of evo- lution among human creatures, and which may make the process of evolution far more rapid in its workings. With the additional element of thought as the endowment of man, along with the gift of language, there has been established a new medium through which the laws of evolution may work.