Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals–continued

Abstract

I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh remarks, “has a rightful supremacy over every “other principle of human action;” it is summed up in that short but imperious word ought , so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. Immanuel Kant exclaims, “Duty! Wondrous thought, “that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, nor “by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked “law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always “reverence, if not always obedience; before whom all “appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel; “whence thy original?” This great question has been discussed by many writers of consummate ability; and my sole excuse for touching on it is the impossibility of here passing it over, and because, as far as I know, no one has approached it exclusively from the side of natural history.