CHAPTER VIII.. The Social and Moral Feelings.

THE SOCIAL AND MORAL FEELINGS.

Origin of the Social Feelings—Animal societies—Nutritive societies—The individual and society—Domestic societies—Social instinct has its source neither in sexual nor in maternal love—Gregarious societies—Attraction of like for like—Origin of social tendencies—Accidental and transitory unions, of variable duration, and voluntary—The social tendencies arise from the conditions of existence—Social life does not spring from domestic life—The higher societies among animals: they exclude family relations—Human societies—Two opposite theories of their origin: the family, the horde—Evolution of the family—Evolution of social life—The family and the clan not similar institutions—The moral sense. Two views of its origin: (a) the intellectual, (b) the emotional—They correspond to two stages in its development—Its innateness and its necessity belong to the motor, not the intellectual order—Genesis of the benevolent feeling. Psychological analysis of its generative elements. Facts in support of this—Discoverers in morality—Genesis of the sense of justice—Phases of its development—Conclusion: complexity of the moral sense—Pathology. Elimination of the questions of criminal anthropology. Moral insensibility.

At the moment of beginning the study of the composite emotions which have had the most brilliant career, and played the most important part in human life, it will be well to indicate the course which will be followed, once for all. We cannot, in dealing with the social, moral, religious, æsthetic and intellectual sentiments, discuss the numerous questions which they suggest, and so lose ourselves in endless details. The allotted task of psychology seems to me to be quite clearly defined—viz., to take each feeling at its origin and try to determine its nature and follow its development, in its principal phases, by the help of the documents supplied to us by ethnology, and the history of morals, of religions, and of æsthetic and scientific culture, thus avoiding vagueness and a priori reasoning, without losing our way in an inextricable tangle of facts.

In conformity with this plan, we shall begin with the simplest forms of the social instinct in animals, passing from them to man, and thence to the evolution of moral tendencies.

Even if we admit the transformist hypothesis, zoological evolution has not proceeded in a straight line. This point, it is true, is contested, but it is all the more important to remember, because the development of the organisation and that of the social instincts do not always go on pari passu. Thus the social aptitudes of ants and bees are far superior to those of certain mammals considered of a far higher type of organisation. Without troubling ourselves, therefore, about the frequent disagreements between zoological taxinomy and sociological psychology, we shall follow the ascending march of the social instinct, no matter in what order or class or at what point of the genealogical tree it shows itself.

We thus find four principal forms of animal societies: at the lowest stage, those founded on nutrition; further on, those based on reproduction; then, unstable, gregarious societies; and finally, societies with a stable and complete organisation. Some special question will be put with regard to each of them, so as to show us the social question under some one particular aspect.

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Footnote 168:

For the general study of this question see Espinas, Les Sociétés Animales, 2nd ed. (1878), and Ed. Perrier, Les Colonies Animales.

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“The idea of a society,” says Espinas, “is that of permanent co-operation between separate living beings, engaged in the same action” (op. cit., p. 157). The character of permanence even is not necessary for the inferior forms; there are temporary societies differing in toto from those heterogeneous, fortuitous, momentary aggregates which we call crowds. Reciprocity and solidarity are the two fundamental conditions, a fact which excludes from human and animal societies two forms somewhat approximating to them: parasites, in whose case there is no reciprocity, and who show a modified form of the struggle for life; and messmates, where community of life, though it involves no injurious action, likewise implies no helpful one.

I. In animal societies founded on nutrition, it is this function which constitutes the social tie; the individuals composing it are attached to one another in a permanent manner, from their birth onwards, and the nutritive liquid circulates from one to another, thus establishing a material community. It is found in the hydroid polypes, the Bryozoa and the Tunicata. As examples of the superior forms, we may quote the hydractinia, composed of individuals each of which has its own special and exclusive function: some, that of feeding; others, that of feeling and exploring; others, of defending the colony; others, again, of reproducing it—the last-named being divided into males and females. The siphonophora present an analogous division of labour, and the community, over a metre in length, suspended to a floating bladder, executes well co-ordinated collective movements.

Is there—at any rate in the higher forms of these colonies—a social instinct? Solidarity and reciprocity can indeed be perceived, in an objective, material way, in the form of adherence, and vascular communication; but nothing proves that there is anything more than an organic solidarity and reciprocity. Perhaps, in circumstances such as the nautical manœuvres just mentioned, in which a general obedience to one directing individual has been ascertained, there is a momentary consent—a certain unity of representation. To be accurate, the terms individual and community are diverted from their ordinary acceptation and used in an equivocal sense. Our notion of the individual is that of an organised whole living independently by itself: this no longer corresponds to the present case. Our notion of a community is an assemblage of individuals, and as these are, in the case under consideration, of a peculiar nature, it might thus be contended with equal force that these aggregates deserve, or that they do not deserve, the name of animal communities: it is a question of the point of view. On the one hand, one may regard the hydractinia or the siphonophora as a complex individual whose organs are the fishing, the piloting, the reproductive, etc., individuals. On the other hand, it may be maintained that the food-providers, pilots, etc., are true individuals whose aggregation forms a society. In short, it is an undifferentiated state, in which individuals and community are hardly to be distinguished from one another, and are only two different aspects of the same whole. The social instinct, also, if existing at all, is not yet differentiated from the conservative instinct under its simplest forms—the search for food, defence, attack. In fact, the two coincide. This stage has nothing more to teach us. Let us now pass on to social forms whose psychology is clearer.

II. These are the societies founded on reproduction—domestic societies, or families, under their various forms. I prefer to begin with these rather than with the gregarious state; first, on account of their universality; then because they are the first to appear in chronological order. Common opinion finds in them the first manifestation of the social sentiments, their origin, their source, and their moment of entry into the world. I reject this view in order to adopt that which connects the social instinct with the gregarious state.

If we take, one after another, the conditions of every aggregate founded on reproduction, we shall find three stages: that of sexual approach, that of maternal love, and lastly, but in the case of animals only exceptionally, paternal love. The social instinct—i.e., the more or less vague consciousness of at least a temporary solidarity and reciprocity—does not, as we shall see, make its appearance at any of these stages.

1. Sexual approach results from one particular instinct; it unites two individuals only: can we consider it as the embryo of a society? “Around sexuality are co-ordinated the altruistic instincts of which the animal is capable.” This formula of Littré’s needs defining with more precision. First, in the immense majority of cases the connection is not lasting; the blind instinct satisfies itself, and all is over. Higher up there are more permanent forms, such as polygamy and polyandry; but these small communities founded on sex-attraction are closed, and have no power of radiation or extension, no future. Higher still we find monogamy, as among wolves, many birds, etc.; but the monogamic aggregate is still more of a close corporation than the others. Let us note, in passing, that these two forms, polygamy and monogamy, are distributed through the animal world in an apparently fortuitous manner, having no relation to the intellectual development—as, for instance, the monogamy of the stork and the polygamy of the monkey.

Finally, this first stage yields us no result, tending rather towards social restriction than social extension.

2. Maternal love is of much greater importance. In domestic societies it is the universal and permanent element, the vital bond. This emotion is so widespread, so well known, we might say so trite, that it seems to involve no mystery, and yet, if we descend into animal psychology, we find nothing more enigmatical. The development of sympathy and intelligence partly explains it in the human species and the higher animals; but in the lower orders the difficulty becomes extreme. Yet it shows itself among the annelids, the crustacea, the mollusca, and even the echinoderms, which carry their eggs about adhering to their bodies. Frequently it shows itself as a feeling which, though vague, is tenacious, devoted, heroic. We do not indicate all the difficulties of the question, as for instance: How can an insect take such care of its eggs when it cannot recognise its own form in a creature which in nowise resembles itself, and has not even a living form?

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Footnote 169:

For a detailed study of this question see Espinas, Les Sociétés Animales (2nd ed.), pp. 334 et seq., 411 et seq., 444 et seq.

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Most naturalists content themselves with ascertaining the fact, without inquiring into its origin. Darwin declares that it is useless to speculate on this subject. Others connect maternal affection with parasitism—scarcely a legitimate hypothesis, since the parasite is the enemy of its host and lives against his will at his expense. Romanes seems to have recourse to the principle of serviceable variations; an animal which takes care of its eggs or carries them about with it, has a better chance of preserving them; and if this way of acting becomes a fixed habit in its descendants, an instinct has been established. This explanation reduces itself to chance and to the hereditary transmission—an open question—of acquired modifications.

Excluding the insects and those analogous cases which, as Espinas has shown (op. cit., pp. 334-339), require a special explanation, it is preferable to admit, with this author and Bain, the prominent part played by contact. “It seems to me that there must be at the foundation that intense pleasure in the embrace of the young which we find to characterise the parental feeling throughout. The origin of the pleasure may be as purely physical as in the love of the sexes; ... [there is] an initial satisfaction in the animal embrace, heightened by reciprocation.” “The female, at the moment when she gives birth to little ones resembling herself, has no difficulty in recognising them as the flesh of her flesh; the feeling she experiences towards them is made up of sympathy and pity, but we cannot exclude from it an idea of property which is the most solid support of sympathy. She feels and understands up to a certain point that these young ones which are herself at the same time belong to her; the love of herself extended to those who have gone out from her changes egoism into sympathy and the proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse. As sexual love implies the idea of mutual ownership, so maternal love supposes that of subordinated ownership. It is because this other self is so feeble that the interest felt for it takes the form of pity.” This last remark relates to an emotional manifestation which Spencer regards as the source of maternal love—tenderness for the weak. This seems to me rather one of its elements than its sole basis. On the other hand, Bain maintains that “an intensified attraction towards the weak is not merely consistent with the gregarious situation, but seems to be required by its varying exigencies.... An interest or solicitude about weak members would be almost the necessary completion of the social system” (Bain, op. cit., pp. 138, 139). This granted, maternal love and social instinct would have an element in common, but they nevertheless remain distinct and mutually independent.

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Footnote 170:

Bain, The Emotions, p. 140.

Footnote 171:

Espinas, Les Sociétés Animales, pp. 444 et seq.

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I have insisted to some extent on maternal love, because it is one of the most important manifestations of the emotional life. It is clear that it belongs to the category of the tender emotions, of which it is a well-determined form and remarkable by reason of its intensity; but it is not the source of the social instinct, because it implies neither solidarity nor reciprocity. It might be maintained that it is the gate by which the feeling of benevolence made its entrance into the world, and that its appearance is the earliest in date; but other conditions are needed for the social instinct to reveal itself.

3. The third stage, marked by the entrance of the father into the domestic community, does not affect our conclusion. In the animal world taken as a whole, paternal affection is rare and far from permanent, and among the lower representatives of humanity the feeling is a very weak one and the tie very loose. It exists, however, and its origin is much more difficult to assign than in the case of maternal love. Though it may be maintained that in man it originates in pride and the feeling of ownership (Bain), this hypothesis is not applicable to animals; we cannot say, as in the case of the mother, that there is a material and visible relation, so that the offspring seems to be a separated portion of the parent. It remains to establish the significance of sympathy for weakness, as a primary cause of this feeling. We might add another element if we admit, with Spencer, that the life in common of the father and mother (paternal affection being only found where unions are permanent) creates a current of affection in proportion to the services rendered. Whatever origin we may assign to it, it adds nothing to our discussion, and has no efficacity in arousing the social instinct.

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Footnote 172:

For the theories on this matter see Espinas, pp. 401 et seq.

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To sum up: what we find at the base of domestic aggregates is tender emotion, the genesis of altruism, but restricted to a closed group, without expansive force or elasticity.

III. The gregarious life—i.e., that of the animals who live in troops or hordes—is founded on the attraction of like for like, irrespective of sex, and for the first time manifests the true social tendencies, through the habit of acting in common.

In its lowest degree it consists of accidental and unstable assemblages which are, as it were, an attempt at life in common. Every one knows that certain pelagic animals travel in vast numbers, their course being determined by the temperature of the water or the direction of the currents. We also know what happens in the migrations of processionary caterpillars, of crickets, and more especially of birds. Numerous species of animals assemble together in the morning and evening to sing, utter their various cries, pursue each other and gambol about, living dispersed at other times. This shows, says Espinas, “a latent social tendency, always ready to show itself when not combated by any other tendency.”

Higher still, we find assemblages of variable duration, but voluntarily formed and maintained, in view of a common aim. They have all the characteristics of a society—community of effort, synergy, reciprocity of services. Darwin has given many examples of this: Pelicans fish in concert, and close in round their prey like a living net; wolves and wild dogs hunt in packs, and help each other to attack their victims. These communities are to some extent accidental and unstable, and may come to an end in a final competition for the sharing of the spoil. Much more stable are those which have the common defence for their aim: rabbits warn one another of danger; many mammals and birds place sentinels (it is well known how difficult it is to approach a herd or drove of animals); monkeys remove vermin or take out thorns from one another’s skins, form a chain to cross the gap between two trees, unite their forces to raise a heavy stone, and finally, gathered into bands under the direction of a leader, they defend themselves energetically and risk their lives to save their companions. We might enumerate endless facts of this kind. No doubt, we have not yet found the permanent organisation, the fixed division of labour, the continuity, which are peculiar to the higher animal societies; but the instability and intermittence of these social forms help us to understand why they exist and whence they originate.

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Footnote 173:

Descent of Man, chap. iii. See also Espinas, op. cit., sec. iv.

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Social tendencies are derived from sympathy; they arise in determinate conditions. The facts already given supply the answer to the questions: how do they arise? what is their source? They arise from the nature of things, from the conditions of the animal’s existence; they are not based on pleasure, but on the unconscious affirmation of the will to live; they are auxiliary to the instinct of conservation. Society, as Spencer justly remarks, is founded on its own desire—i.e., on an instinct.

The gregarious life, as this writer has shown in detail, predominates among the herbivora and graminivora, who, as a rule, being ill armed for strife and finding food in abundance, find it to their advantage to live in herds.

The contrary is the case with the carnivora; they are well armed, and need ample space in which to hunt down their prey, so that it is to their advantage to live in isolation, except in those cases already mentioned, where they associate together for a difficult chase, or for defence against a dangerous enemy.

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Footnote 174:

Herbert Spencer, Psychology, ii. § 503 et seq.

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We may add that there are animals which, as they find it to their advantage or otherwise, live alternately in communities or isolated. “Certain sociable birds in Australia build bowers of branches, where they assemble in great numbers during the day. In pairing-time the society is broken up, and each couple retires by itself to construct its own separate nest. While the temporary families last there is no longer any assemblage, nor any life in common; it only begins again when the young are able to try their wings. This is only one of numberless examples which might be mentioned.”

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Footnote 175:

Houssay, Revue philosophique, May 1893, p. 487.

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In short, gregarious life depends on stature, strength, means of defence, kind and distribution of food, and mode of propagation. Derived from necessity, this habit of life in common creates a solidarity which is not mechanical and external, but psychological: the sight, the touch, the smell of his companions constitute in each individual a part of his own consciousness, of which he feels the want in its absence; the distressed state and the lamentations of an animal separated by chance from the herd are well known.

Here a disputed question suggests itself. It has been already settled by implication in the course of the statements already made, but it cannot be thus treated retrospectively and merely in passing. For the moment I may confine myself to indicating it. If we compare family societies and gregarious societies, what relation is there between them? We find ourselves in presence of two opinions or theories—one in favour of unity, the other of duality.

The first, the most ancient and widespread, derives social life from domestic life. The family is the social molecule: by its increase are formed aggregates of a more or less complex character, whose life in common creates a solidarity and an exchange of services—i.e., the conditions of a community.

The second admits two groups of irreducible feelings and tendencies, mutually independent, though there are points of contact. The social instinct is not derived from the domestic feelings, while the latter are not derived from the social feelings. They are distinct by nature, having their respective sources in the attraction of like for like, irrespective of sex, and in the sexual appetite and the development of the tender emotions.

More than this: some writers, especially zoologists, have maintained that there is not merely dualism but antagonism. When the feelings of domestic life are strong, social solidarity is lax or non-existent. When social solidarity is close and rigorous, the family tendencies are transitory, effaced, or nil—e.g., in ants and bees. The case of the Australian birds shows us this antagonism in an alternating form, the domestic and the social tendency predominating by turns. No doubt this antagonism is not irremediable and is compatible with various modifications and compromises; but there is, in fact, a dualism not to be explained away. I shall return later on to this question, only remarking in anticipation that the dualist view seems to me the only admissible one.

IV. The higher societies are those in which the animal world has attained its loftiest degree of social development. In them we find division of labour, solidarity, stability, and continuity through several generations. Such are bees, wasps, ants, termites, beavers, etc. It is not part of our subject to study them, since our only aim is to follow the social tendencies to their highest point; but the problem already suggested again arises: On what foundation do these higher societies rest? Espinas, who admits the view of the family as the source of social life, classes them among societies having reproduction for their purpose. For my own part, I refer them to the gregarious state, in which they mark the stage of the highest perfection. Let me take this opportunity of pointing out the inconveniences of a false position and the factitious difficulties arising from it. The author draws out (pp. 370 et seq.) a detailed comparison between the societies of bees and those of ants; he demonstrates the superiority of the latter, who, according to circumstances, dig, carve, build, hunt, store up food, reap harvests, keep slaves and cattle, and when they carry on war against the wasps (the warlike representatives of the bees) gain the victory. He also clearly shows that this superiority is due to their terrestrial habits, in which every contact, every march, leaves them a precise indication of the nature of their surroundings. But he finds something perplexing in this superiority. As a matter of fact, a hive is a perfect domestic society, since the queen-bee—i.e., the common mother—is the visible soul of social life among the bees. An ant-heap is imperfect, “inferior” as a domestic society, as containing several females. The apparent contradiction disappears, if we consider that in both cases, especially in the second, the essential element is the solidarity among the members, the mutual attraction between similar beings, and that, consequently, we must refer them to the gregarious, and not to the domestic type. For the rest, in neither case does the family, in the true sense of the word, exist: it is needless to demonstrate this at length, it is quite sufficient to note the absence of maternal love. And so certain writers have made use of this argument—as I have already said—to prove that such a high development of the social tendencies has only been possible through the suppression of the family tendencies.

II.

If we pass from animals to man, the situation remains the same, and the tendency to social life, in spite of its manifold adaptations, does not change its nature; it is always at bottom a solidarity and a reciprocity of services, determined by the conditions of human existence and variable as they. We need not come back to this; but the question already hinted at—that of the relation between the emotional manifestations serving as a basis to the family on the one hand, and those which are the foundation of social life on the other hand—presents itself anew. We cannot evade it, if we desire any light on the origin of the social feelings.

If we assume the family as the primitive fact which, by its increase, produced the clan, and afterwards, more complex aggregates, such as tribes, connected with each other by the memory of a common ancestor and at last subject to the authority of a patriarch-king, the social development is simply an expansion of the natural family. On this hypothesis, the domestic tendencies (founded on reproduction) are primary; the social tendencies are derivative and of secondary or tertiary formation.

If, on the contrary, we consider the smallest social groups (hordes, clans, or whatever other name they may be called by) as existing by themselves, independently of the domestic group, the tendency to live in societies must be considered as irreducible and self-determined; there is only one more general emotional phenomenon whence it could be derived, viz., sympathy.

Evidently, this question cannot be settled a priori, but only by the interpretation of facts. Now there is no lack of documents, supplied by ethnology from observations on actually existing primitive peoples, by the history of the remotest epochs, and by the literary monuments of the earliest ages, which are the echo of prehistoric times. There is no lack, either, of authorised works on the subject: MacLennan, Bachofen, Tylor, Sumner Maine, Starcke, Westermarck—to cite only a few at random. Although there is much disagreement, both as to the facts and the interpretation of the facts, the probability is very slight in favour of the priority of the family, very great in favour of two distinct developments with inevitable points of contact and interference.

Let us briefly recall the most generally admitted results of research into the evolution of the family and the progress of social development.

1. The evolution of the family has certainly not proceeded in all places in the same way, a circumstance which always permits the critic to oppose facts to the view he is combating. A disease inherent in the human mind induces most writers to try and refer everything to one formula, to impose on facts that perfect unity which, in such matters, does not appear very probable. Those who assign the greatest length of time to the evolution of the family admit three stages: promiscuity, matriarchate, patriarchate.

The period of primitive promiscuity (Bachofen, MacLennan, Girard-Teulon, etc.) is contested and rejected by many authorities. In any case, it does not seem as if we could establish the rule without a great number of exceptions. Not to speak, however, of archaic institutions which have been interpreted in this sense, and as survivals, there are still certain Tartar populations which approach this stage. At Hawaii, the individual was related to the whole horde, age alone determining the relationships: every one called all the old people indiscriminately grandfather and grandmother; all those who, as far as age went, might be his parents, father and mother; all those of his own generation, brothers and sisters; and so on for sons and daughters, grandsons and grand-daughters. These five terms expressed all known degrees of kinship. We may note, in passing, that a very weak psychological argument has been put forward in order to disprove the existence of this period—viz., that the natural jealousy of man would have rendered promiscuity impossible, at least for any length of time. Those who have hazarded such reasoning have been too ready to judge primitive man by civilised standards. However this may be, such a mass, without individual relationships, is rather a society than a family; or rather, it is an undifferentiated state, which might be compared to the lowest form of animal societies (the nutritive), which also is undifferentiated.

In the period of the matriarchate, which appears to have lasted for a considerable time, the mother is the centre of the family. This domestic form, coexisting with polygamy, polyandry, and even with monogamy, has left so many traces, and is still met with in so many different races and countries, from the ancient Egyptians and Etruscans to the present natives of Sumatra and some regions of Africa, that there is no dispute on the subject. The woman gives her name to the children, kinship is reckoned, and the inheritance of property (though not always that of political dignities) descends, in the female line; the position of most importance is filled, not by the father, but the uncle—the mother’s brother. The causes of the matriarchal system have been much discussed. Did it originate in an assumption that the true father was unknown, or in a common opinion of his insignificance? Whatever view may be adopted, it seems to me reasonable to compare the matriarchate with the predominating system among animals—i.e., maternal societies where the male is not admitted.

The patriarchate (agnatio) which makes the father the centre of the family brings us down to the historic epoch, to which it was even anterior in some parts of the globe. Its appearance is saluted in lyrical terms by Bachofen as the triumph of ideas over matter: “By the spiritual principle of paternity the chains of tellurism were broken;” it was a conquest of mind over material nature—over what can be seen and touched. It is not known how it came about, whether by adoption or by a pretence of childbirth. In any case, it corresponds with the admission of the male into animal societies.

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Footnote 176:

Mutterrecht, pp. 17-19. See also his interpretation of the myths of Orestes and Bellerophon as expressing the triumph of the patriarchate, p. 85.

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2. The development of social life is quite otherwise. It would be foreign to our purpose to retrace its successive phases; let us confine ourselves to the question of origin. What was primitive man? On this point much has been written by way of argument and conjecture. H. Spencer, in his Sociology (vol. i.), has made a complete restoration from prehistoric documents, burial-mounds, and more especially from the condition of contemporary savages. Nothing proves that this picture will suit all classes; there have existed not one primitive man, but primitive men differing considerably, according to race and environment.

However far we go back, the first form of life in common seems to be the horde, an unstable, unorganised aggregate, without recognised kinships, drawn together instinctively in view of utility and defence. But the true social unit, which arose at an early period in various parts of the globe, is the clan (and analogous institutions), a fixed, stable, coherent, closed aggregate, founded on religious or other affiliation (but not on descent), independent of family conditions: a man cannot belong to two clans at once, and in most cases each of these groups is in a hostile attitude towards the rest. How has this social molecule been able to aggregate to itself others, and this closed organism to break its narrow limits, in order to extend itself by increase and fusion? This is a somewhat obscure question; perhaps by exogamy, i.e., the imperative custom which forbade marriage within the group (yet in other groups the rule was endogamy, i.e., the prohibition of marriage outside them); more probably the great agent of assimilation and fusion was war, followed by the assimilation of the conquered.

This simple comparison shows that the family and the clan are not similar institutions: the first is an autonomous group belonging to a master, and having for its end the enjoyment of property; the second is a group of another nature having for its end the common struggle for existence. “Where the interests defended by the family are less important than those of the clan, the family is influenced by the ideas which regulate the clan organisation; and this fact repeats itself in all primitive societies when defence against an outside enemy is the dominant necessity.” The family group and the social group have each sprung from different tendencies, from distinct needs; each has its special, independent psychological origin, and there is no possible derivation from one to the other.

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Footnote 177:

Starcke, La famille primitive, p. 116.

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III.

Life in common, even under the gregarious form, requires certain ways of acting, and habits founded on sympathy and determined by the concerted aim pursued by all. In order that it may become stable and constitute a society, an element of fixity must be added—the more or less clear consciousness of an obligation, of a rule, of what has to be done or avoided. This is the appearance of the moral sentiment. All conceptions of morality, coarse or refined, theoretical or purely practical, agree on this point; divergences exist, in practice, only as to the characteristics of the act reputed obligatory; in theory, only as to its origin.

All real morality which has lived, i.e. governed a human society, large or small, which has existed, not in the academic abstractions of moralists, but in the concrete development of history, and has run its complete course, passes through two principal periods.

One of these is instinctive, spontaneous, unconscious, unreflecting, determined by the conditions of existence of a given group at a given moment. It expresses itself in custom—a heterogeneous mixture of beliefs and actions which, from the point of view of reason and of a more advanced culture, we consider sometimes as moral, sometimes as immoral, sometimes as unmoral, i.e., puerile and futile, but all of which have been rigorously observed.

The other is conscious, reflecting, many-sided, complex, like the higher forms of social and moral life. It expresses itself in institutions, written laws, religious or civil codes; and still more in the abstract speculations of philosophical moralists. Then, the apogee being reached, vague aspirations reach out towards a new, dimly apprehended ideal, and the cycle begins over again.

Most constructors of a scientific system of morality have forgotten or neglected the first period; but wrongly so, for it is the source of the second. This, too, is the reason for the two opposite views held with regard to the origin of moral development.

Some seek it in the order of knowledge, whence they deduce all the rest; they suppose innate ideas, or an adaptation acquired through a long process and fixed by heredity (Spencer), or the consciousness of a categorical imperative, or the notion of utility; all of which are intellectual solutions.

Others seek it in the order of instinct and feeling. They admit tendencies, impulses implanted in us by nature, i.e., forming part of our organisation, like thirst and hunger, whose satisfaction produces pleasure and their non-satisfaction pain; this is the emotional view.

The two are not absolutely irreconcilable: each of them corresponds to a different period of evolution; the emotional view to the instinctive stage, the stage of moral chaos; the intellectualist view to the reflective stage of rational organisation; but it is clear that one alone can claim the mark of its origin. In other words, we may say: in the moral consciousness there are two elements—judgment and feeling. A judgment (approving or condemnatory) on our own conduct and that of others is the result of a deeper process—not an intellectual one—of an emotional process of which it is only the clear and intelligible manifestation in consciousness. It would be a psychological absurdity to suppose that a bare, dry idea, an abstract conception without emotional accompaniments, and resembling a geometrical notion, could have the least influence on human conduct. No doubt, we must admit that the evolution is rather that of moral ideas than of the moral sentiment, which, in itself, is no more than a tendency to act—a predisposition; but an evolution of purely speculative ideas, with no emotional accompaniment, will have no results in the practical order. We may note that the opposition between these two views is constantly reflected in the history of moral theory. In England, where psychology predominates, the doctrine of feeling has had numerous champions, from Shaftesbury down to the present day. In Germany, where metaphysics are predominant, the intellectualist doctrine, since Kant, occupies the first place, except with Schopenhauer and his adherents. It is quite natural that the metaphysicians, intellectualists by temperament and by profession, should have adopted this position.

For the rest we are concerned here with the moral sentiment, and with that alone; the other elements of morality do not form part of our study. It consists, at bottom, in movement or arrest of movement, in a tendency to act or not to act; it is not, in its origin, due to an idea or a judgment; it is instinctive, and herein lies its strength. It is innate, not like an alleged archetype, infused into man, invariable, illuminating him everywhere and always, but in the same way as hunger and thirst and other constitutional needs. It is necessary; it forces one to act (when not kept in check by counter-tendencies), as the sight of water forces the duckling to plunge into it. Thus we must say that the man who impulsively throws himself into danger to save another is more thoroughly moral than he who only does so after reflection; one must be blinded by intellectualist prejudices to maintain the contrary. Natural morality is a gift—theologians would say a grace; it is artificial, acquired morality, which is measured by the quantity of resistance overcome. Finally, like every other tendency, it results in satisfaction or dissatisfaction (e.g., remorse). In short, its innateness and its necessity place it in the motor, not in the intellectual order.

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Footnote 178:

“The Australians attribute the death of their friends to spells cast by some neighbouring tribe; for this reason they consider it a sacred obligation to avenge the death of a relative by killing a member of the tribe in question. A native having lost one of his wives, announced his intention of going to kill a woman belonging to a distant tribe. The magistrate told him that if he committed this act, he would be confined in prison for the rest of his life. He therefore did not start on his journey; but, month by month, he wasted away: remorse preyed on his mind, he could neither sleep nor eat; the ghost of his wife haunted him, reproaching him with his negligence. One day he disappeared; a year later he came back, having accomplished his duty” (Guyau, Esquisse d’une Morale, etc., p. 109). Here we have an example of instinctive morality and rational immorality. It should be noted that in this work Guyau has returned to the view of the moral instinct, adopted by him, after having previously criticised it, in his Morale Anglaise (III. chap. iv.).

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These characteristics being determined, let us follow the progress of its evolution. It presents two aspects: first, the positive, corresponding to the genesis of the beneficent feelings, or active altruism, an internal evolution—i.e., one of the primary feeling, in and through itself; secondly, negative, corresponding to the rise of the sense of justice, an external evolution—i.e., one produced under the pressure of conditions of existence and coercive means.

I. We include under the name of beneficence, or active altruism, such feelings as benevolence, generosity, devotion, charity, pity, etc.; in short, those foreign or contrary to the instinct of individual self-preservation. Their fundamental conditions are two psychological facts already studied:

1. Sympathy, in the etymological sense, i.e., an emotional unison, the possibility of feeling with another, and like him. Could a society be based on this state alone? In extreme cases this might happen; but such a society would be transitory, precarious, unstable: we have found similar examples in the gregarious state, animal or human. Stability requires stronger ties, that is to say, moral ones.

2. The altruistic tendency, or tender emotion, which exists in all men, except in those to be referred to at the end of this chapter. It belongs to our constitution, as much as the fact of having two eyes or a stomach.

Now the question put to us is this: How is active altruism developed, and by what psychological mechanism? How do disinterested feelings arise from primitive egoism? Setting aside all metaphysical solutions, such as Schopenhauer’s theory of universal pity, compassion (Mitleid) for all beings, founded on a vague consciousness of community of being and identity of origin—a monistic conception,—I shall confine myself to a strictly psychological explanation.

Benevolence arises from a particular form of activity accompanied by pleasure: this vague and obscure formula will be explained presently.

The fundamental tendency consists, in the first place, of preserving, and then of extending one’s self, of being and well-being, i.e., expending activity. Man may devote this activity to things: he cuts, hacks, destroys, overthrows,—these are destructive activities; he sows, plants, builds, and exercises preservative or creative activities. He may apply it to animals or to men; he injures, maltreats, destroys, or he cares for, helps, saves. Destructive activity is accompanied by pleasure, but by a pathological one, since it is the cause of evil. Preservative or creative activity is accompanied by pure pleasure, leaving behind it no painful feeling; consequently, it tends to repeat and increase itself: the object or the person which is the cause of pleasure becomes a centre of attraction, the starting-point of an agreeable association. To sum up, we have (1) a tendency to the display of our creative activity; (2) the pleasure of succeeding; (3) an object or living being to play a receptive part; (4) an association between this being or object and the pleasure experienced; whence a continually increasing attraction towards this being or object. The conservative tendency in action and the law of transference (see