Social environment and moral progress / by Alfred Russel Wallace.
- Alfred Russel Wallace
- Date:
- 1913
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: Social environment and moral progress / by Alfred Russel Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.
113/180 page 101
![XIV] Selection Modified by Mind form as essential a part of human nature as do the higher intellectual and moral facul¬ ties ; that in the very earliest periods of history and among the ver}^ lowest of exist¬ ing savages they are fully manifested, not merely between the members of the same family, but throughout the whole tribe, and also in most cases to every stranger who is not a known or imagined enemy. The earliest book of travels I remember hearing read by my father was that of Mungo Park, one of the first explorers of the Niger. He was once alone and sick there, and some negro women nursed him, fed him, and saved his life ; and while lying in their hut he heard them singing about him as the poor white man, of whom they said :— He has no mother to give him milk, No wife to grind his corn. Hospitality is, in fact, one of the most general of all human virtues, and in some cases is almost a religion. It is an inherent part of what constitutes human nature, and it is directly antagonistic to the rigid law of natural selection which has univer¬ sally prevailed throughout the lower animal world. Those who advocate our allowing lOI](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18022121_0114.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
