At first ethics is asserted to be Such morality as animals may be said to possess is of this type. Next, morals are alleged to be shaped also by social standards. In this stage custom is thought to be the controlling force, as among savages and barbarians. Lastly, in civilization it is proclaimed, conscience enters, and morality comes t o rest on a rational basis, though instinct and custom still continue to assert themselves. A fourth, possible and expected state will be reached, according to this opinion, when these earlier forces are entirely eliminated and ethics becomes purely intelligent. The purpose of the present paper is to deny this theory.As regards animals, the view outlined may be accepted, for, however great or small their power of reasoning, i t is conceded that the mental endowment of all living beings lower than man is essentially if not altogether instinctive. All animals are born imbued with certain abilities beyond which they cannot rise, but which, except for the intervention of sickness, violence, or death, they cannot fail to attain. No animal has ever used speech, organized institutions, made a tool, constructed a work of art, or attempted an explanation; but every normal organism exercises all of the powers of feeling, memory, inference, will, and calculation characteristic of its species, and exercises them equally whether i t is reared in isolation or in the midst of its ancestors and fellows. As there is nothing homologous to the rudest culture or civilization among even the highest animals, custom cannot materially influence them, and their equivalent of our morality must be entirely instinctive.But when humanity is considered, the alleged distinction between the uncivilized and civilized races seems untrue. That any in the development of morals. purely instinctive.