Compare, for instance, a society of bees and a society of men. In both there is division of labour; in both there is organised effort towards an end which is other and greater than the individual good of any single member of the community. But though there are these deep-lying resemblances between the two cases, how important are the differences which divide them! In the bee-hive altruism is obeyed, but not chosen. Alternative ends are not contrasted. No member of the community thinks that it could do something different from, and more agreeable than, the inherited task. Nor in truth could it. General interest and individual interest are never opposed, for they are never distinguished. The agent never compares, and therefore never selects. Far different are the ethical conditions requiring consideration when we turn from bees to men. Here egoism and altruism are not only distinguished in reflection; they may be, and often are, incompatible in practice. Nor does this conflict of ends only show itself _between_ these two great ethical divisions; it is not less apparent _within_ them. Here, then, we find ourselves in a world of moral conflict very faintly foreshadowed in animal ethics. For us, ultimate ends are many. They may reinforce each other, or they may weaken each other. They may harmonise, or they may clash. Personal ends may prove incompatible with group ends: one group end may prove incompatible with another. Loyalty may be ranged against loyalty, altruism against altruism; nor is there any court of appeal which can decide between them. But there are yet other differences between the ethics of instinct and the ethics of reflection. Instincts are (relatively) definite and stable; they move in narrow channels; they cannot easily be enlarged in scope, or changed in character. The animal mother, for example, cares for its young children, but never for its young grandchildren. The lifelong fidelity of the parent birds in certain species (a fidelity seemingly independent of the pairing season, or the care of particular broods) never becomes the nucleus of a wider association. Altruistic instincts may lead to actions which equal, or surpass, man’s highest efforts of abnegation; but the actions are matters of routine, and the instincts never vary. They emerge in the same form at the same stage of individual growth, like any other attribute of the species—its colour, for instance, or its claws. And if they be, like colour and claws, the products of selection, this is exactly what we should expect. But then, if the loyalties of man be also the product of selection, why do they not show a similar fixity?