Lastly, it is quite impossible to evolve the moral law out of anything but itself.
Attempts have been made, and many more will no doubt be made, to trace the origin
of the spiritual faculty to a development of the other faculties. And it is to be expected
that great success will ultimately attend the endeavours to show the growth of all
the subordinate powers of the soul. That our emotions, that our impulses, that our
affections should have had a history, and that their present working should be the result
of that history, has nothing in it improbable. There can be no question that we inherit
these things very largely, and that they are also very largely due to special peculiarities
of constitution in each individual. That large part of us which is rightly assigned
to our nature as distinct from our own will and our own free action, it is perfectly
reasonable to find subject to laws of evolution. Much of this nature, indeed, we share
with the lower animals. They, too, can love; can be angry or pleased; can put affection
above appetite; can show generosity and nobility of spirit; can be patient, persevering,
tender, self-sacrificing; can take delight in society: and some can even organise it and
thus enter on a kind of civilisation. The dog and the horse, man's faithful servants and
companions, show emotions and affections rising as far as mere [mere = pure] emotions
and affections can rise to the human level. Ants show an advance in the arts of life well
comparable to our own.