(106

Chapt 11.

Hindoo for unclean food, ought likewise to be transmitted. Although this itself perhaps not more improbable than that an animal should acquire an inherited taste for certain kinds of food, or a dread of a particular foe, I have not met with a shadow of evidence in support of such a belief.

Finally, as it appears to me, the social instincts, which no doubt were acquired by man, as by the lower animals, for the good of the community, will from the first have given to him some feeling of sympathy & wish to aid his fellows. These impulses will then have served at a very early period as a rude rule of right & wrong. But as man gradually advanced in his intellectual powers & was enabled to trace the more remote consequences of his actions; as he acquired sufficient knowledge to reject baneful customs & superstitions; as he regarded in a greater degree, not only the welfare, but the happiness of