Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/423

No. 4.] wisdom, benevolence, and economy, may be regarded as objective in their principal features. They represent the ways that the primary instincts, which took form prior to civilized life and are now unmodifiable in their central portions, must be controlled and organized. All of them have been generally recognized since antiquity, with the single exception of economy, and this is probably an apparent rather than a real exception, its content having been treated under different heads. It is inconceivable that the conditions of civilized life will change so as to require a different set of cardinal virtues than those now recognized,—at least within any calculable period of time. For this one of two things must happen. Either man would have to acquire a new set of instincts, or the conditions of his life become so greatly changed as to require the organization of the instincts into an altogether different set of habits than those represented by the present set of cardinal virtues. The former is impossible: anthropologists find no variations in essential mental constitution among known races or within historic times such as would make possible the appearance of new instincts. The latter is also impossible, unless we should expect a form of culture different in principle from all those of which we know.

We may therefore conclude that no change in the cardinal virtues in their main outlines is to be expected, at least within any future period which we need to take into account. Every generation of children, born with the same instincts, unchanging in their central portions, will need to acquire these virtues. Certain of their instincts, notably anger, sex, and food, will always need restraint, and the portion of their energy not diverted into other channels will always need to follow conventionalized forms of expression, such as litigation, romantic love and marriage, and the social meal, in accordance with the dictates of justice, honor, and temperance. Another instinct, tender emotion, becomes spontaneously attached by an abiding sentiment only to the family and perhaps close personal associates; children will always have to learn to extend tender emotion as a sentiment to mankind in general and acquire the virtues of justice and benevolence. Wonder and the acquisitive and constructive