Mosaic, Buddhist, Christian and Mussulman theologians 

have had recourse to divine inspiration to distinguish

between  good and evil. They have seen that man, be he

savage or  civilized, ignorant or learned, perverse or

kindly and honest,  always knows if he is acting well or ill,

especially always  knows if he is acting ill. And as they

have found no explanation of this general fact, they have

put it down to divine  inspiration. Metaphysical

philosophers, on their side, have  told us of conscience, of

a mystic "imperative," and, after all, have changed nothing

but the phrases.

	 But neither have known how to estimate the very

simple  and very striking fact that animals living in

societies are  also able to distinguish between good and

evil, just as man  does. Moreover, their conceptions of

good and evil are of the  same nature as those of man.

Among the best developed  representatives of each

separate class,  --fish, insects, birds,  mammals,--   they are

even identical.

	Forel, that inimitable observer of ants, has shown by

a  mass of observations and facts that when an ant who has 

her crop well filled with honey meets other ants with

empty  stomachs, the latter immediately ask her for food.

And  amongst these little insects it is the duty of the

satisfied ant  to disgorge the honey that her hungry friends

may also be  satisfied. Ask the ants if it would be right to

refuse food  to other ants of the same anthill  when one has

had oneUs share. They will answer, by actions impossible

to mistake,  that it would be extremely wrong. So selfish

an ant would  be more harshly treated than enemies of

another species. If  such a thing happens during a battle

between two different  species, the ants would stop

fighting to fall upon their selfish  comrade. This fact has

been proved by experiments which exclude all doubt.

	 Or again, ask the sparrows living in your garden if

it is  right not to give notice to all the little society when

some  crumbs are thrown out, so that all may come and

share in  the meal. Ask them if that hedge sparrow has

done right  in stealing from his neighbor's nest those

straws he had picked up, straws which  the thief was too

lazy to go and collect  himself. The sparrows will answer

that he is very wrong,  by flying at the robber and pecking

him.

	 Or ask the marmots if it is right for one to refuse

access  to his underground storehouse to other marmots of

the same  colony. they will answer that it is very wrong, by

quarrelling in all sorts of ways with the miser.

	 Finally, ask primitive man if it is right to take food

in  the tent of a member of the tribe during his absence. He 

will answer that, if the man could get his food for himself, 

it was very wrong. On the other hand, if he was weary or 

in want, he ought to take food where he finds it; but in

such a case, he will do well to leave his cap or his knife, or

even  a bit of knotted string, so that the absent hunter may

know  on his return that a friend has been there, not a

robber. Such  a precaution will save him the anxiety

caused by the possible  presence of a marauder near his

tent.

	 Thousands of similar facts might be quoted, whole

books  might be written, to show how identical are the

conceptions  of good and evil amongst men and the other

animals.

The ant, the bird, the marmot, the savage have read neither 

Kant nor the fathers of the Church nor even Moses. And 

yet all have the same idea of good and evil. And if you re-

flect for a moment on what lies at the bottom of this idea, 

you will see directly that what is considered good among

ants, marmots, and Christian or atheist moralists is that

which  is useful for the preservation of the race; and that

which  is considered evil is that which is hurtful for race

preservation. Not for the individual, as Bentham and Mill

put it,  but fair and good for the whole race.

	 The idea of good and evil has thus nothing to do

with  religion or a mystic conscience. It is a natural need of

animal races. And when founders of religions,

philosophers, and  moralists tell us of divine or

metaphysical  entities, they are  only recasting what each

ant, each sparrow practices in its  little society.

	 Is this useful to society? Then it is good. Is this

hurtful?  Then it is bad.

	 This idea may be extremely restricted among

inferior animals, it may be enlarged among the more

advanced animals;  but its essence always remains the

same.

	 Among ants it does not extend beyond the anthill.

All  sociable customs, all rules of good behavior are

applicable  only to the individuals in that one anthill, not

to any others.  One anthill will not consider another as

belonging to the  same family, unless under some

exceptional circumstances,  such as a common distress

falling upon both. In the same  way the sparrows in the

Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, though  they will mutually

aid one another in a striking manner,  will fight to the

death with another sparrow from the Monge Square who

may dare to venture into the Luxembourg. And  the

savage will look upon a savage of another tribe as a person 

to whom the usages of his own tribe do not apply. It is 

even allowable to sell to him, and to sell is always to rob

the  buyer more or less; buyer or seller, one or other is

always  "sold." A Tchoutche would think it a crime to sell

to the  members of his tribe: to them he gives without any

reckoning. And civilized man, when at last he

understands the  relations between himself Ind the

simplest Papuan, close relations, though imperceptible at

the first glance, will extend  his principles of solidarity to

the whole human race, and even  to the animals. The idea

enlarges, but its foundation remains  the same.

	 On the other hand, the conception of good or evil

varies  according to the degree of intelligence or of

knowledge acquired. There is nothing unchangeable

about it.

 Primitive man may have thought it very right --that is, 

useful to the race-- to eat his aged parents when they

became  a charge upon the community-- a very heavy

charge in the  main. He may have also thought it useful to

the community  to kill his new-born children, and only

keep two or three in  each family, so that the mother could

suckle them until they were three years old and lavish

more of her tenderness upon them.

	 In our days ideas have changed, but the means of

subsistence are no longer what they were in the Stone Age.

Civilized man is not in the position of the savage family

who have  to choose between two evils: either to eat the

aged parents  or else all to get insufficient nourishment

and soon find themselves unable to feed both the aged

parents and the young  children. We must transport

ourselves into those ages, which  we can scarcely call up

in our mind, before we can understand that in the

circumstances then existing, half-savage  man may have

reasoned rightly enough.

	 Ways of thinking may change. The estimate of what

is  useful or hurtful to the race changes, but the

foundation  remains the same. And if we wished to sum

up the whole  philosophy of the animal kingdom in a

single phrase, we  should see that ants, birds, marmots,

and men are agreed on  one point.

	 The morality which emerges from the observation

of the  whole animal kingdom may be summed up in the

words: "Do  to others what you would have them do to

you in the same circumstances.

	 And it adds: "Take note that this is merely a piece

of advice; but this advice is the fruit of the long experience 

of animals in society. And among the great mass of social 

animals, man included, it has become habitual to act on 

this principle. Indeed without this no society could exist, 

no race could have vanquished the natural obstacles

against  which it must struggle."

	 Is it really this very simple principle which

emerges from  the observation of social animals and

human societies? Is  it applicable? And how does this

principle pass into a habit  and continually develop? This

is what we are now going  to see.