THE CAREER OF HERBERT SPENCER 17 



foundation for the other, grows more solid with time, and is clearly 

 seen to be too massive for the flimsy superstructure that he sought to 

 erect upon it. 



In Spencer's system ethics is placed last in the series of subjects 

 or sciences, as if it were the highest evolutionary product. Although 

 he laid no stress on the serial arrangement of the sciences, and in his 

 little book on the " Classification of the Sciences," written to refute 

 Comte's " hierarchy," he practically ignores it, still he could not answer 

 the charge of arranging his volumes in practically the same order as 

 Comte arranged the sciences. Nor did he deny that he regarded this 

 as the order of evolution. As Comte did the same for his " Morale," 

 the implication is that they both regarded ethics as a science of the 

 same type as the others, only higher in the scale, and, in fact, the 

 highest of them all. It would thus grow out of and be affiliated upon 

 sociology. The treatment of it does not in either case sustain this 

 claim. In Spencer's case this is much more marked than in Comte's, 

 because they had quite different ideas of what constitutes a moral sci- 

 ence. Spencer, as we have seen, regarded it simply as a " regulative 

 system," which is not a science at all. His treatment of it virtually 

 carries out this idea, and his " Principles of Ethics " scarcely differs 

 from the traditional moral teaching of other writers, except that it is 

 " secular " and recognizes no religious or " ultra-rational " sanction. 

 After he had abandoned his " absolute ethics," as set forth in his 

 "Social Statics" (expunged from the last edition), but shown to be 

 false by a study of the widely divergent moral ideas of the races of 

 men, the last claim to the title of a science had been withdrawn from 

 ethics, and it stood at the head of the system having no organic con- 

 nection with the other sciences of that system. What, then, is his 

 ethics ? It is simply an attempt to make a practical application of the 

 true sciences, especially of sociology to human needs. In so far as 

 it is a science in any sense, it is an applied science, and the greater 

 part of it may be denominated applied sociology.-" 



The subject of Spencer's relations with Comte and the similarity 

 of their ideas has been purposely avoided in this article, because it 

 presents the least attractive side of a great man's mind. His over- 

 weening affection for what he called " the progeny of the brain,"^! his 

 intense love of originality, which often seems to exceed his love of 

 truth, and his morbid sensitiveness to any apparent appropriation of 

 his ideas, blinded him to the merits of others and often led him to 

 refine upon a distinction without a difference. Jealousy as well as 

 envy may be a compliment. This can alone explain Spencer's attitude 

 toward Comte. He must have felt, and been oppressed by the fact, 



'"Cf. "Applied Sociology," pp. 317-318. 

 " " Life and Letters," Vol. I., p. 254. 



VOL. LXXIV. — 2. 



