2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing that ethics is a regulated compromise between egoism and altruism. 

 What remains is to consider the possibility of an ultimate conciliation. 

 The position at present being that egoism is too strong or altruism too 

 weak, the conciliation must work by finding some means of strength- 

 ening the altruistic promptings. Mr. Spencer sees in the tendencies of 

 evolution a progress in this direction. In an interesting dissertation 

 on the sources of sympathy, he endeavors to point out that the faculty 

 admits of development in two ways, viz., the natural language or ex- 

 pression of the feelings, and the susceptibility to that expression as 

 witnessed. He expects such an increase in these two powers as to re- 

 I verse the predominance of egoism, and to make altruism the prevalent 

 fact of our constitution in minds generally, as it is at present in a few. 

 There will then be as much competition in rendering services as there 

 is at present in exacting them. Indeed, the difficulty will be to find 

 scope for the altruistic cravings. The spheres finally remaining will 

 be chiefly (1) family life, in which the care of children by parents and 

 of parents by children will be better fulfilled, (2) social welfare, in the 

 improvements of the social state, and (3) private relations, where the 

 casualties of life will always afford occasion for help to the sufferers. 

 " Far off as seems such a state, yet every one of the factors counted on 

 to produce it may already be traced in operation among those of high- 

 est natures. What now in them is occasional and feeble, may be ex- 

 pected with further evolution to become habitual and strong ; and 

 what now characterizes the exceptionally high may be expected event- 

 ually to characterize all. For that which the best human nature is 

 capable of is within the reach of human nature at large," 



In a chapter entitled " Absolute and Relative Ethics," Mr. Spencer 

 defines absolute ethics as formulating the normal conduct for an ideal 

 society, such as we shall have in the future, and relative ethics as the 

 science that interprets the phenomena of existing societies in their 

 transitional states, laboring under the miseries of non-adaptation. 

 The coexistence of a perfect man and imperfect society is impossible ; 

 and, could the two coexist, the resulting conduct would not furnish 

 the ethical standard sought. Among people that are treacherous and 

 without scruple, entire truthfulness and openness must bring ruin, 

 " Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing 

 in the ideal social state. On the evolution hypothesis, the two pre- 

 suppose one another ; and only when they coexist can there exist that 

 ideal conduct which absolute ethics has to formulate, and which 

 relative ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate diver- 

 gences from right, or degrees of wrong." 



The final chapter — " The Scope of Ethics " — is the summary and 

 outcome of the whole, and offers the easiest means of comparing the 

 author's point of view with the prevailing theories. The ethics of per- 

 sonal conduct is the best defined of all, from the requirements being 

 so largely affiliated upon physical necessities. If this ethics could be 



