CHAPTER I. SPECIAL DEVELOPMENTS OF ALTRUISM. We have now reached a point at which it is desirable to consider shortly the results already attained. The first and most important is that the formation of the idea of moral obligation is dependent on the recognition of new relations rather than on a development of principle. Its foundation as well as its final expression is " right." A certain line of conduct is proper, not because it is dictated by duty, but because it is right, although being so, it is obligatory. The idea of propriety is formed at a very early stage of progress, and it remains the same through all subsequent stages, although it receives very different applications. At first, it has relation only to self, and concerns only the property rights acquired through the action of the instinct of self-preservation. After a while it comes to be recognised by the savage that others possess the same rights as he claims for himself, not all others, but those who belong to the family or clan to which he belongs. It is at a later date that those rights are allowed to the members of the common tribe or nation. Only in the latest stage does the application of the idea of propriety in relation to moral conduct become absolute, in consequence of the recognition of the universal brotherhood of humankind. A second important result arrived at is that the conduct which constitutes practical morality, or in other words, the recognition of the rights of others, has not a |