COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



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a new foundation in the tacit assumption that individual 

 men are bound to the service of the common weal ; and 

 this assumption is masked, and made to look like the 

 statement of a scientific fact, by the process of borrowing 

 a parable from biology. 



Of course it may be rejoined that Comte is much 

 more true to his phenomenalist assumptions, and that 

 he is merely appealing to fact when he uses the bio- 

 logical parable. Any one, it may be said, can see that 

 men are dependent upon society, and that selfishness 

 leads to unhappiness, not to happiness. That, however, 

 suggests Hedonism, and Hedonism is strange to Comte. 

 Hedonism represents the earlier and probably the more 

 consistent working out of a phenomenalist view of human 

 conduct ; but sociology represents a strong reaction from 

 it, as from other manifestations of individualism. Prob- 

 ably it will be admitted to-day in most quarters that 

 J. S. Mill failed logically in his generous attempt to 

 establish the claims of all upon the fact of each man's 

 personal interest in his own happiness. Some more 

 recent sociological schools do indeed resume the appeal 

 to hedonism ; but they do so as we shall shortly note 

 in connection with a doctrine of evolution which was 

 unknown to Comte, and which those who rely on it 

 regard as affording a new basis for morals, a new ram- 

 part against the assaults of a destructive individualism. 

 To unsophisticated phenomenalism, one fact is as good 

 as another ; and there is no fact more pressing than the 

 claims of self. It may possibly be argued that the new 

 doctrines of evolution bridle the spirit of selfishness by 

 showing that each individual inherits a sort of com- 

 pendium of the moral experience of past ages. But, at 

 any rate, in the absence of evolutionary doctrine, Comte 

 had to qualify or corrupt his phenomenalism in the in- 



