of which are composed of members not necessarily illiterate or otherwise unrefined, there is a low development or a great degradation or perversion of the moral sentiment. The evidences of this vary both in their nature and number, according to the class whose habits are matters of enquiry. Of modern white savages those that approach most nearly to the primitive peoples of lands and islands beyond the pale of civilisation are, for instance, the cave-dwellers of Wick Bay (Caithness-shire, Scotland), as described by Dr. Mitchell, of Edinburgh—a group or tribe of wandering gipsies (or Scoticè tinkers). He found them to be of the lowest type; poor weak creatures-morally, intellectually, and even physically. They were the analogues of the inhabitants of our city closes, and were not a whit more degraded. . . . Among them virtue and chastity feebly existed; honour and truth even more feebly." Of a group of twenty-four persons some were wholly, others partially, nude, in both cases with 'no sense of shame.'

On the other hand, the recreations of the miners, colliers, or navvies of the central counties-including their wife-kicking—and of the aristocracy of the metropolis—including their treatment of the lower animals-illustrate eloquently and painfully the present state of moral feeling in Christian England among upper and lower classes alike. Even in the higher ranks, that boast of their culture or refinement, their advanced civilisation, their high mental endowments, their morality and religion, as distinguishing them from what are contemptuously spoken of as 'the brutes that perish,' intemperance, the social evil, debauchery, fast life, commercial immorality, battue-shooting and other forms of the pursuit of 'sport'-nay, the very wars that have devastated in our own day portions of the continent of Europe and of the United States of America-all point to bloodthirstiness, lust, selfishness, dishonesty, untruthfulness, and other moral vices as perpetually cropping up and contaminating society even in its highest forms of development.

1 Report of a lecture on 'Cave Life in Scotland,' Daily Review (Edinburgh) of February 10, 1877.

Very appropriately does Goldsmith, in his 'Deserted Village,' speaking of tigers and their ferocity, refer to

Savage men, more murderous still than they.

In short, 'man's inhumanity to man' may well make 'countless thousands mourn' in senses and to an extent hitherto unthought of. It transcends in reality all the conceptions of the missionary, poet, or philanthropist. In order to estimate its enormity we must place it alongside the humanity of the lower animals to each other and to man himself, their tyrant. And, considering his opportunities and theirs, his moral and religious status and theirs, we cannot fail to be brought to regard these, in one sense, inferior creatures-such as the dog-as morally the superiors of hosts of human beings.

Darwin dwells on the differences of opinion that exist as to whether the moral sense is instinctive or acquired. Bain, Mill, Maudsley, and others have pointed out its acquired nature. It is, in truth, produced or developed in man by culture; it decays or disappears with age; it is perverted or destroyed by disease. It is certainly not innate in primitive man, in the civilised child, or in the idiot. In none of these cases does it at first or under natural and normal conditions exist, while in some it cannot be developed by any degree or kind of culture. Nor are individual moral feelings innate, any more than the aggregate of these feelings. Sexual modesty is not an original virtue, but is, like conscience, the slow product of civilisation. The idea of marriage, and all its relationships, is in the same position-not innate, but a gradual growth under favourable circumstances.

Captain Burton remarks, "It is time to face the fact that conscience is a purely geographical and chronological accident. Where, may we ask, can be that innate and universal monitor in the case of a people—the Somali, for instance who rob like Spartans, holding theft a virtue; who lie like Trojans, without a vestige of appreciation for truth; and who hold the treacherous and cowardly murder of a sleeping guest the height of human honour?' In short, there is 'no sin, however infamous, no crime, however abominable,

but at some time or in some part of the world has been, or is still, held in the highest esteem.'

As regards what are called 'abstract ideas '-of duty, for instance-Houzeau and other authors point out that they are not natural either to savage man or to the civilised child. The notion of duty, whatever be its nature, requires in both to be developed by training.

The moral sense, then, which has been so complacently regarded as an instinct peculiar to man, is often absent in him. There is a want of it, absolute or comparative, in—

1. Many savages.
2. Many children.
3. Many idiots.

4. Many lunatics.
5. Many criminals.

And this has constantly to be borne in mind in all expectations or enquiries concerning the presence or absence of the moral sense in other animals.

CHAPTER II.

THE MORAL SENSE IN OTHER ANIMALS.

ALL the ordinary definitions of what is variously called in man the moral sense, sentiment, feeling, faculty, or instinct, apply, though not necessarily equally, in the same degree, with quite the same sense or force, to an equivalent mental attribute or series of psychical qualities in other animals, and which attribute or qualities in other animals there is no good reason for distinguishing by any other name, simply because they are to be found in animals zoologically lower than man.

Thus the moral sense in man has been defined by different classes of authors to be, or to include

1. A knowledge, appreciation, or sense of

a. Right and wrong.

b. Good and evil.

c. Justice and injustice.

2. Conscience, involving feelings of approbation or the reverse in relation to ideas of right and wrong.

3. The approval of what is conducive to well-being, and the disapproval of the reverse.

4. Sense of duty and of moral obligation.

5. Appreciation of the results of honesty and dishonesty.

6. Virtue or virtuousness, including especially such moral

There is not one of these moral qualities that is not possessed, sometimes in a high degree, by certain of the lower animals, and more especially the dog; and there are many authors, who have been desirous of drawing marked psychical distinctions between man and other animals, who have nevertheless felt themselves compelled by the evidence of facts to concede to these other animals, or certain of them, the possession of morality akin to that of man. Agassiz, for instance, grants them morals; Froude speaks of their principles of morality; Brodie refers to the moral sentiments as occurring in gregarious animals; Shaftesbury allows to them a sense and practice of moral rectitude; Watson gives instances of their moral feeling, and Wood of their conscience. And certain animals have even been described as possessing a moral law and codes of morals.

The dog, at least, frequently exhibits a knowledge of right and wrong, making a deliberate choice of the one or the other, perfectly aware of and prepared for the consequences of such a selection. The animal has occasionally the moral courage to choose the right and to suffer for it, to bear wrong rather than do it (Elam). Not only does this frequently noble animal know the right, but it dares to do it, enduring the expected, the inevitable, consequent, suffering. One of the many evidences that the dog is sensible of right-doing is to be found in the familiar fact that when it performs an action which to it seems meritorious, or which it has reason to believe its master will deem so-when it saves a life, or successfully defends a trust, or resists some great temptation -it looks at once for some sign of the said master's approbation, perhaps for some reward. There is both the selfapprobation or self-satisfaction of the mens conscia recti and an expectation of man's approval. The animal is gratified if such approval is in any form vouchsafed, disappointed if it be withheld.

It must also distinguish between the right and the expedient-what would be most for its own interest to do. In other words, it is just as apt as man is, and not more so, to take a selfish view of all affairs-to consider how they are likely to affect its own personal interests. The choice