366 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



instincts to Individualism, to Socialism, and, in a less 

 extent, to Humanism,^ guide us to those principles of 

 conduct, duty to self, duty to society, and duty to 

 humanity, which our forefathers were taught to think of 

 as the outcome of supersensuous decrees or of divine 

 dispensations, and which some even of their children still 

 regard as due to mysterious tendencies to righteousness, 

 or to some moral purpose in the universe at large. 



S 1 6. — Individualism^ Socialism, and Humanism 



We may fitly conclude this chapter on Life by a few 

 remarks on the extent to which Individualism, Socialism, 

 and Humanism respectively describe the features of human 

 development. The great part played in life by the self- 

 asserting instinct of the individual does not need much 

 emphasising at the present time. It has been for long 

 the over-shrill keynote of much of English thought. All 

 forms of progress, some of our writers have asserted, 

 could be expressed in terms of the individualistic tendency. 

 The one-sided emphasis which our moralists and publicists 

 placed upon individualism at a time when the revolution 

 of industry relieved us from the stress of foreign com- 

 petition, may indeed have gone some way towards relaxing 

 that strict training by which a hard-pressed society 

 supplements the inherited social instinct. This emphasis 

 of individualism has undoubtedly led to great advances in 

 knowledfje and even in the standards of comfort. Self- 

 help, thrift, personal physique, ingenuity, intellect, and 

 even cunning have been first extolled and then endowed 

 with the most splendid rewards of wealth, influence, and 

 popular admiration. The chief motor of modern life with 

 all its really great achievements has been sought — and 

 perhaps not unreasonably sought — in the individualistic 

 instinct. The success of individual effort in the fields of 



1 A good deal of the humanistic instinct as developed in modern times 

 is practically a product of socialism. As the tribal recognition-marks grew 

 feebler and localisation less definite, the social sympathies were extended to 

 the stranger whose habits and modes of thought were not too widely divergent 

 from those of the society in which he found himself. 



