stence against other tribes. One the other hand J. S.
Mill urged that the moral feelings are not innate but acquired, and
Bain held the same view, believing that the moral sense is acquired by
each individual during his life-time. Darwin, who notes[194] their
opinion with his usual candour, adds that "on the general theory of
evolution this is at least extremely improbable." It is impossible to
enter into the question here: much turns on the exact connotation of
the terms "conscience" and "moral sense," and on the meaning we attach
to the statement that the moral sense is fundamentally identical with
the social instincts.

Presumably the majority of those who approach the subjects discussed
in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of _The Descent of Man_ in
the full conviction that mental phenomena, not less than organic
phenomena, have a natural genesis, would, without hesitation, admit
that the intellectual and moral systems of civilised man are ideal
constructions, the products of conceptual thought, and that as such
they are, in their developed form, acquired. The moral sentiments are
the emotional analogues of highly developed concepts. This does not
however imply that they are outside the range of natural history
treatment. Even though it may be desirable to differentiate the moral
conduct of men from the social behaviour of animals (to which some
such term as "pre-moral" or "quasi-moral" may be applied), still the
fact remains that, as Darwin showed, there is abundant evidence of the
occurrence of such social behaviour--social behaviour which, even
granted that it is in large part intelligently acquired, and is itself
so far a product of educability, is of survival value. It makes for
that integration without which no social group could hold together and
escape elimination. Furthermore, even if we grant that such behaviour
is intelligently acquired, that is to say arises through the
modification of hereditary instincts and emotions, the fact remains
that only through these instinctive and emotional data is afforded the
primary tissue of the experience which is susceptible of such
modification.

Darwin sought to show, and succeeded in showing, that for the
intellectual and moral life there are instinctive foundations which a
biological treatment alone can disclose. It is true that he did not in
all cases analytically distinguish the foundations from the
superstructure. Even to-day we are scarcely in a position t