Problems of Conduct | Page 8

more than is apparent
upon the surface. The child seems very unmoral, the mere prey of
passing impulses; but latent in his brain are many aptitudes and
tendencies which will at the proper time ripen and manifest themselves.
The period of adolescence is that during which the changes in mental
structure which were effected during the later stages of evolution are
being made in the mind of this new individual; he reenacts, as it were,
in a few years, the history of the race, and emerges without any
conscious effort, the possessor of the fruits of that long struggle of
which he was always the heir.
(2) In all the later stages of animal evolution, however, moral
development is largely conscious, or semi-conscious. Besides our inner
inheritance of altered brain-paths there is a social inheritance of habits

which each generation adopts by imitation of its predecessors. Without
any deliberate intention, the young of every species imitate their
parents, and then the older members of the flock or herd. "Suggestion"
is said by some to be the chief means of moralization; we are brave or
industrious because we see others practicing these virtues and naturally
do as they do. At any rate, whichever are more important, the inherited
tendencies or those acquired by contagion, both of these factors play a
large part in the development of the individual's morals.
(3) The third method of moral development is that which we call
"learning by experience." The pain or dissatisfaction which a wrong
impulse brings in its train, the satisfaction which follows a moral act,
are remembered, and recur with the recurrence of a similar situation,
becoming perhaps the decisive factors in steering the animal or man
toward his true welfare. Many animals quite low in the organic scale
learn by experience; and though of course the degree of consciousness
that accompanies these readjustments varies enormously, this method
of moralization may be said to be always, like the preceding, a more or
less conscious process. Learning by experience is subject, of course, to
many mistaken judgments; the fallacy of post hoc propter hoc leads
many learners to avoid perfectly innocent acts as supposedly involving
some evil result with which they were once by chance connected; and
the true causes of the evils are often overlooked. Even when dimly
conscious readjustments become highly conscious deliberation, the
results of that deliberation may be less forwarding morally than the
unconscious and merciless grinding of natural selection.
More and more, of course, as men grew in power of reflection, did they
consciously shape their morals; and this intelligent selection, which has
as yet played a comparatively small role, is bound, as men become
more and more rational, to supersede in importance the other factors in
moral evolution. But in the later phases of evolution all three of these
processes blend together; and it would be impossible for the keenest
analyst to tell how much of his conduct was determined in each of
these ways.
H. Spencer, Data of Ethics (also published as the first part of his

Principles of Ethics), chap. I and chap. II, through sec. 4; or J. Fiske,
Cosmic Philosophy, part II, chap, XXII, first half, to "We are now
prepared to deal." L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, part I, chap. I,
secs. 1-4. I. King, Development of Religion, pp. 48-59 A great mass of
concrete material will be found in E. Westermarck's Origin and
Development of Moral Ideas, H. O. Taylor's Ancient Ideals, W. E. H.
Leeky's History of European Morals.
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF SOCIAL MORALITY
How early was social morality developed?
By social morality we mean, concretely, such virtues as tender and
fostering love, sympathy, obedience, subordination of selfish instincts
to group-demands, the service of other individuals or of the group.
These habits are later in development than some of the personal virtues,
but long antedate the differentiation of man from the other animals.
Instances of self-sacrificing devotion of parent to offspring among birds
and beasts are too common to need mention. Devotion to the mate,
though less developed, is early present in many species. The strict
subordination of ants and bees to the common welfare is a well-known
marvel, the latter enthusiastically and poetically described by
Maeterlinck in his delightful Life of the Bees. The stern requirements
of obedience to the unwritten laws of the herd, which make powerful so
many species of animals individually weak, are graphically, though of
course with exaggeration, set forth by Kipling in his Jungle Book.
Many sorts of animals, such as deer and antelopes, might long ago have
been exterminated but for their mutual cooperation and service.
Affection and sympathy in high degree are evident in some sub-human
species. When we come to man, we find his earliest recorded life based
upon a social