Even in the Homeric poems, which reflect
a degree of mental cultivation in some respects equal to our own, these
concepts hardly appear. But ages earlier, far back in the course of
animal evolution, there emerged phenomena which we may consider
rudimentary forms of morality; and all early human history was replete
writh unanalyzed and unformulated moral struggles. Concretely, we mean
by personal morality courage, industriousness, self-control, prudence,
temperance, and other similar phenomena, which have this in common,
that they involve a crossing of earlier-developed impulses and
redirection of the individual's conduct, with the result, normally,
that his welfare is enhanced. Exceptions to this result will be
considered later; but the point to be noted at the outset is that
personal morality is not at first the outcome of reflection, or a
purely human affair. If we were to take the term "morality" in a
narrower sense, as meaning conscious obedience to a sense of duty or
to the moral law, it would obviously be a late product. But morality
in this sense is only an ultimate development of what in its less
conscious and reflective forms dates far back in pre-human history.
Take courage, for example, which may be briefly defined as action in
spite of the instinct of fear and contrary to its leading. Nearly all
of the higher animals exhibit courage in greater or less degree, and
there are many touching instances of it recorded to the credit of those
we best know.
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