The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable, namely,
that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,
the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably
acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual
powers had become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man....
_Secondly_, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed,
images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly
passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of
dissatisfaction, or even misery, which invariably results, as we shall
hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct would arise as often as it
was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct,
had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither
enduring in its nature nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression.
Now let us see what Darwin means. The social instincts include human
sympathy and the desire for the company of our fellows; love of
approbation, which is the desire to be loved, or to be thought well of,
by our fellows; and gratitude, which is the love we pay back for the
love which is given us:
These social instincts are sometimes so strong, even in animals, as to
overcome the powerful maternal instinct; so that migratory birds, as
Darwin shows, and as we all know who have read our Gilbert White, will
go with the flock and leave their new broods defenceless and unprovided
for.
The social instincts, then, are very strong, and they lead us to conform
to social rule or sentiment.
But now Darwin tells us that in the case of man "images of all past
actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain."
These "images" are mental pictures, and they are printed on those brain
cells which make what we call "memory." Now, Darwin tells us that these
memory pictures would cause us pain as often as they reminded us that we
had broken the social rule or outraged the social sentiment in order to
indulge some instinct of a selfish kind.
And Darwin makes it clear to us that such a selfish desire may be strong
before it is gratified, and may yet leave an impression of pleasure
after it is gratified which is weak indeed in presence of the
deep-rooted social memories.
Let us take a few examples. The desire for a pleasure may be strong
enough to drive us to enjoy it, and yet the pleasure may seem to us not
worth the cost or trouble after the desire has been sated. When we are
hungry the desire for food is intense.
After we have eaten we are no longer hungry. But we grow hungry again,
and then the desire for food is as intense as ever.
Dick Swiveller goes to a bachelor party, and the desire for the
convivial glass is strong within him. He drinks too much, and the next
morning calls himself a fool for drinking. He is ashamed of his excess,
and he has the headache, and the temptation is now absent. But when he
is well again, and at another party, the old desire comes back with the
old power. So Dick once more indulges too freely in "the rosy," and has
another sick head in consequence. And then the social instincts rise
up and reproach him, and the sated appetite, being weak, appears to him
contemptible.
The social instinct is constant: the selfish desire is intermittent. The
passion is like a tide which leaps the moral wall and then falls back
to low water. The wall remains: it may be sullied or shaken, but it is
still a moral wall, and only a long succession of such tides can break
it down. When passion has broken down the moral wall the man is at the
mercy of his passions. They flood the dwelling of his soul again and
again until he is a ruin.
This, I think, explains Darwin's idea of the struggle between the social
and selfish instincts.
In "Adam Bede" George Eliot blames the seducer of Hettie Sorrel for
doing a terrible wrong for the sake of a brief selfish indulgence. But
that charge is unfair. It implies that the deed was planned and done in
cold blood. But the fact was that both Hettie and Arthur were carried
away by a rush of passion. The great tide of desire, a desire made
terribly strong by Nature, had overleapt the walls of morality and
prudence.
Anger has been called a brief madness. The same kind of thing might
be said of all the passions. It is as easy to be virtuous after the
temptation as to be wise after the event We can all be brave in the
absence of the enemy. The result of a struggle between the sea and a
wall depends upon the force of the tide and the strength of the wall.
It behoves us all to see that moral walls are builded strong and kept in
good repair.
Let us go back to the action of the memory in the making of morals.
Dr. C. W. Saleeby, who is doing good work in this field, gives us clear
light in his book, "The Cycle of Life." He says:
Memory means a change impressed more or less deeply on the grey surface
of the brain.
A _change_. Those "images" which Darwin tells us are continually passing
through the mind have actually made a _change_ in the brain. That is to
say, they have made a change in the _mind_: they have made a change in
the personality.
After showing how a singer learns to produce a note properly by practice
until he is almost incapable of producing it improperly, and until its
proper production has become mechanical, Dr. Saleeby says:
The effect of practice, as in any other art, mechanical, mental, or
both, has been so to alter the constitution of the nerve cells as to
produce a new mode of action.
The nerve cells have been _re-arranged_, and the _habit_ of the person
has been _altered_. He is no longer quite the same person. He now acts
and thinks differently.
Now, these changes in the arrangement of the brain cells and fibres may
be looked upon as the building up of the moral wall. And the desires and
aversions are like the rising and falling tide.
And the tide of our desires is a tide of nature. Because our desires and
aversions seem to work by reflex action. What is reflex action?
Reflex action, as I use the term here, is the mechanical action of the
nerves. We do not grow hungry, or thirsty, or angry, or compassionate on
purpose: we do not fall in love on purpose. The stomach, working,
like the heart and lungs, by reflex action, without our knowledge or
direction, uses up the food, and our nerves demand more. The desire for
food, for love, for revenge, is due to reflex action. The desire makes
itself felt first without our asking, and we have to refuse or to grant
its request after it is made.
We do not say: "Behold, there is a pretty face: I will be attracted by
it." We cannot _help_ being attracted by the face that attracts us, any
more than we can help being hungry. The face attracts us, more or less,
and we decide to seek out its owner, according to the strength of the
attraction and of the reason for resisting the attraction. We see
a diamond. We do not say: "There is a diamond. I will not think it
beautiful." We _cannot_ think it anything but beautiful; but whether or
not we shall buy it or steal it depends upon the strength of our desire
and the strength of the reasons against gratifying that desire.
Now, let us see how these conflicting ideas act. A man sees a beautiful
woman, and desires to see more of her. But he fears if he sees much of
her he will fall in love with her. And he is engaged to marry another
woman. What goes on in his mind? Memory reminds him that he is engaged,
and that it would be "wrong" to follow his desire. And every time the
temptation draws him to follow his desire he calls up the "image" of the
other woman, and he calls up the images of old lessons, of old thoughts,
of old opinions read and heard by him. And the stronger the temptation
grows the more earnestly does he invoke these images. Now, what does
all this show? It shows the contest between the reflex action of desire,
backed by the memories of love's pleasures, on the one part; and, on the
other part, of the moral feelings of memories of what he has learnt or
thought to be right and wrong. It is then a battle between memory and
desire.
A man is never tempted by a woman who does not attract him.
He never steals a thing he does not want. He does not drink a liquor he
does not like. The desire must be there before his will is put to the
test. And the desire is independent of his will.
A child has no morals. It has only desires. If it likes sugar it will
take sugar. If it is angry it will strike. It is only when it is told
that to steal sugar or strike its nurse is "naughty" that it begins to
have a moral sense. And its moral sense consists entirely of what it
_learns_--that is to say, its moral sense is _memory_. And its memory
is a _change_ in the arrangement of the cells of the grey matter of the
brain. And these changes make the brain into a different kind of brain:
make the child into a different kind of child.
Now, the child does not teach _itself_ these moral lessons. It does not
know them. It has to be taught by those who do know. And its moral sense
depends upon what it is taught. And its conscience depends upon what it
is taught.
And, that being so, is it not quite evident that the conscience is _not_
the voice of God; that the conscience is not an innate knowledge of
right and wrong born with the child; but it is nothing more nor less
than the action of the memory?
The whole of this subject is ably and exhaustively treated by Luys in
"The Brain and Its Functions," but I have not room here to go into it
fully. Briefly put, the scientific explanation may be expressed thus:
The brain cells have power to receive and to _repeat_ impressions. When
a new sensory impulse arises it awakens these impressions by means of
the fibres of association. It is as though the brain were a phonographic
"record." Upon this "record" there is printed, let us say, some moral
lesson, as "Look not upon the wine when it is red in the cup." On the
word "wine" being heard the association fibre which links the idea of
wine to the moral idea of temperance sets the "record" in motion, and
memory recalls the caution, "Look not upon the wine in the cup." It is
as if a "record" on which is printed a song by Dan Leno were joined
up with a battery which, upon hearing the word "Leno," would start the
"record" to repeat the song.
I hope I have made that clear. I will now conclude by quoting from Dr.
Saleeby a passage dealing with the important subject of "association." I
take it from "The Cycle of Life":
Nerve cells are significantly incapable of division and reproduction....
All the experience of living merely modifies, the state of the cells
already present. The modification is memory.
But though a nerve-cell cannot divide, it can send forth new processes,
or nerve-fibres from itself--what we call a nerve being simply a
collection of processes from a nerve-cell. Throughout the brain and
spinal cord we find great numbers of nerve processes which simply
run from one set of nerve-cells to another, instead of running to
a sense-organ, or a muscle, or a gland. Such fibres are called
_association_ fibres, their business being to associate different sets
of nerve-cells.
It is conceivable that an exceptional development of such fibres may
account for the possession of a good memory, or, at any rate, for
the power easily to learn such co-ordinations as are implied in
violin-playing, billiards, cricket, or baseball. Granting the power
of nerve-cells, even when adult, to form new processes, it might be
supposed that the exercise of this power accounts for the acquirement of
certain habits of thought or action.
Now, whether or not nerve-cells have power to form new association
fibres late in life, it is important to notice that the association
fibres which exist at birth or form in childhood are the means by which
one idea suggests another; and the means by which, as I said just now,
upon the utterance of the word "wine" all we have remembered to have
read or heard about wine is repeated by the memory "record."
And, just as a phonograph record can only repeat the song or speech that
is printed upon it, so the memory can only repeat what it contains, and
it contains nothing that has not been printed there through the medium
of the senses.
That is why the word "marriage" carries with it no moral revulsion
against polygamy in the mind of a Turk. The brain of a Turk has no
"record" on its grey matter of any moral teaching against polygamy. And
the "still small voice" does not make good the absence of the "record,"
and tell him that polygamy is wrong. This being so, what becomes of the
theory that conscience is a mysterious agent of God implanted in the
mind of man to guide him to do right and to shun wrong?
A cannibal chief was told by a missionary that it was wicked to have two
wives. He went away and _ate_ one wife. The missionary had printed on
his brain "record" the lesson that to have two wives was wrong; but
there was no "record" there to tell him he must not kill one wife and
eat her.
Where was the "still small voice," the "divine guide to right conduct"?