Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/103

Rh states of lesser differentiation in which its existence was presumably more and more bound up with that of those more primary social instincts from which it first derived its origin. To us conscience means a massive consolidation of innumerable experiences, inherited and acquired, of remorse following one class of actions and gratification their opposites; and this massive body of experience has reference to ideas of an abstraction so high as to extend far beyond the individual, or even the community, which our actions primarily affect. No wonder, therefore, that, when any course of action is being contemplated, conscience asserts her voice within us as a voice of supreme authority, commanding us to look beyond all immediate issues, inclinations, and even sympathies, to those great principles of action which the united experience of mankind has proved to be best for the individual to follow in all his attempts to promote the happiness or to alleviate the misery of his race. But with animals, of course, the case is different. They start with a very small allowance of hereditary experience in the respects we are considering; they have very few opportunities of adding to those experiences themselves; they probably have no powers of forming abstract ideas; and so their moral sense, rudimentary in its nature, can never be exercised with reference to anything other than concrete objects—relation, companion, or herd.

We may now proceed to answer the question already propounded, namely: Supposing Mr. Darwin's theory concerning the origin of the moral sense to be true, where among animals should we expect to find indications of such a sense? I think reflection will show that the three essential conditions to the presence of a moral sense are only complied with among animals in the case of three groups—namely, dogs, elephants, and monkeys. I need not say anything about the intelligence or the sociability of these animals, for it is proverbial that there are no animals so intelligent or more social. It is necessary, however, to say a few words about sympathy.

In the case of dogs sympathy exists in an extraordinary degree. I have myself seen the life of a terrier saved by another clog which staid in the same house with him, and with which he had always lived in a state of bitter enmity. Yet, when the terrier was one day attacked by a large dog, which shook him by the back, and would certainly have killed him, his habitual enemy rushed to the rescue, and, after saving the terrier, had great difficulty in getting away himself.

With regard to elephants, I may quote the well-known instance from the "Descent of Man:" "Dr. Hooker informs me that an elephant, which he was riding in India, became so deeply bogged that he remained stuck fast until next day, when he was extracted by means of ropes. Under such circumstances elephants seize with their trunks any object, dead or alive, to place under their knees, to prevent their sinking deeper in the mud; and the driver was dreadfully