The Descent of Man

der method. Miss Cobbe, in commenting
('Darwinism in Morals,' 'Theological Review,'
April 1872, pp. 188-191) on the same illustration,
says, the PRINCIPLES of social duty
would be thus reversed; and by this, I presume,
she means that the fulfilment of a social duty
would tend to the injury of individuals; but she
overlooks the fact, which she would doubtless
admit, that the instincts of the bee have been
acquired for the good of the community. She
goes so far as to say that if the theory of ethics
advocated in this chapter were ever generally
accepted, "I cannot but believe that in the hour
of their triumph would be sounded the knell of
the virtue of mankind!" It is to be hoped that
the belief in the permanence of virtue on this
earth is not held by many persons on so weak a
tenure.) Nevertheless, the bee, or any other
social animal, would gain in our supposed case,
as it appears to me, some feeling of right or
wrong, or a conscience. For each individual
would have an inward sense of possessing cer-