[Notes to reader: This is quite a lengthy writing.  Interested readers are suggested ensure ample of time to read, resonate and contemplate.  I invite reader to express well thought reactions to establish continuing discussion on the topic for further knowledge.  I am obliged to provide further information on the topic if needed.  You can find this writing on my blog http://gancys.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?]

  I am picking only part of this book for summary and leave rest to the readers’ interest.  If somebody is interested in understanding diverge Races of Man, one should read Darwin’s theory of Sexual Selection in conjunction with Natural Selection explaining divergences – astonishing theory!!  The summary doesn’t do any justice to Darwin’s ideas and require a completing reading.

  Here is the summary from my notes made while reading the book.  May be this could inspire the reader to read the entire book.  Following are the very words of the genius himself.

Natural Selection

            Man is variable in body and mind; and that the variations are induced, either directly or indirectly, by the same general causes, and obey the same general laws, as with the lower animals.  Man has spread widely over the face of the earth, and must have been exposed, during his incessant migrations, to the most diversified conditions and must have experienced climates and changed their habits many times, before they reached their present homes.  The early progenitors of man must have increased beyond their means of subsistence; they must, therefore, occasionally have been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to the rigid laws of natural selection.  Beneficial variations of all kinds will this, either occasionally or habitually, have been preserved, and injurious ones eliminated.

Sexual Selection

            [I could not have written a justifiable summary to Darwin’s provocative theory of Sexual Selection, hence I leave this to the interested reader to learn for themselves.]  

Language

           A great stride in the development of the intellect will have followed, as soon as the half-art and half-instinct of language came into use; for the continued use of language will have reacted on the brain and produced inherited effect; and this again will have reacted on the improvement of language.    Largeness of the brain in man relatively to his body, compared with the lower animals, may be attributed in chief part to the early use of some simple form of language – that wonderful engine which affixes signs to all sorts of objects and qualities, and excites trains of thought which would never arise from the mere impression of the senses, or if they did arise could not be followed out.  The higher intellectual powers of man, such as those of ratiocination, abstraction, self-consciousness, etc probably follow from the continued improvement and exercise of the other mental faculties.

Moral & Conscience

            A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly deserves this designation, is the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals.  Moral sense follows, firstly, from the enduring and ever-present nature of the social instincts; secondly, from man’s appreciation of the approbation and disapprobation of his fellows; and thirdly, from the high activity of his mental faculties, with past impressions extremely vivid; and in these latter respects he differs from the lower animals.  Owing to this condition of mind, man cannot avoid looking both backwards and forwards, and comparing past impressions.  Hence after some temporary desire or passion has mastered his social instincts, he reflects and compares the now weakened impression of such past impulses with the ever-present social instincts; and he then feels that sense of dissatisfaction which all unsatisfied instincts leave behind them, he therefore resolves to act differently for the future – and this is conscience.  Any instinct, permanently stronger or more enduring than another, gives rise to a feeling which we express by saying that it ought to be obeyed.

The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection.  Nevertheless the first foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social instincts, including sympathy; and these instincts no doubt were primarily gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through natural selection

Belief in God – Religion

            There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent god.  On the contrary there is ample evidence collected, that numerous races existed and exit even today, who have no idea of one or ore gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea.  The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed. 

If, however, we include under the term ‘religion’ the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case wholly different; for this belief seems to be universal with the less civilized races.  Nor it is difficult to comprehend how it arose.  As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand what was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence.  Some explanation of the phenomenon of life, a man must find for himself; and to judge from the universality of it, the simplest hypothesis and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomenon are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants and thing, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves posses.  It is also probable that dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits; for savages do not readily distinguish between subjective and objective impressions. When savages dreams, the figures which appear before him are believed to have come from a distance, and to stand over him; or ‘the soul of the dreamer goes out on its travels, and comes home with a remembrance of what it has seen’.  But until the faculties of imagination, curiosity, reason, etc, had been fairly well developed in the mind of man, his dreams would not have led him to believe in spirits, any more than in the case of a dog.

The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed: my dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance slight breeze occasionally moved dog, an open parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog, had any one stood near it.  As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked.  He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the present of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory.

The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods.  For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves feel.

The feeling of religious devotion is highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements.  No being could experience so complex an emotion until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least moderately high level.  Nevertheless, we see some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings.

The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, to various superstitions and customs.  Many of these are terrible to think of – such as sacrifice of human beings to blood-loving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire; witchcraft, etc – yet it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our accumulated knowledge.

Instincts

            Any animal whatever, endowed with well –marked social instincts, the parents and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man.  For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take a pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.  Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the timer stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression.  It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration; and after beings satisfied, are not readily or vividly recalled.

For each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or more enduring instincts, and other to which impulse should be followed; and satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or even misery would be felt, as past impressions were compared during their incessant passage through the mind.  In this case an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed the one impulse rather than the other.  The one course ought to have been followed, and the other ought not; the one would have been right and the other wrong.

[I use an example to explain this further.  Consider the conflict between two instincts of man, firstly self-preservation Vs maternal instinct and secondly, self-preservation Vs social instinct.  In the first case, a mother is influenced to maternal instinct for her child so much so her very basic instinct of self-preservation is given up.  Similarly, a man watching another fellow drowning in water would immediately jump into water to save the fellow as against protecting himself.  This case stronger social instinct of empathy takes over basic instinct of self-preservation]

Although some instincts are more powerful than other, and thus lead to corresponding actions, yet it is untenable, that in man the social instincts (including love of praise and fear of blame) possess greater strength, or have, through long habit, acquired greater strength than the instincts of self-preservation, hunger, lust vengeance, etc. 

Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what other think of us – of their imagine approbation or disapprobation; and this all follows from sympathetic instinct, a fundamental element of the social instincts.  A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster.  On the other hand, the desire to satisfy hunger, or any passion such as vengeance, is in its nature temporary, and can for a time be fully satisfied.  The instinct of self-preservation is not felt except in the presence of danger; and many a coward has thought himself brave until he has met his enemy face to face.  The wish for another man’s property is perhaps as persistent a desire as any that can be named; but even in this case the satisfaction of actual possession is generally a weaker feeling than the desire.

The nature and strength of the feelings which we call regret, shame, repentance or remorse, depend apparently not on the strength of the violated instinct, but partly on the strength of the temptation, and often still more on the judgment of our fellows.  Remorse seems to bear the same relation to repentance, as rage does to anger, or agony to pain.