CHAP, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 31 



terests of the public weal. It is not because experience 

 proves society to be the true source of individual happi- 

 ness that Comte champions society, or that he sings the 

 praises of the social life. He ignores our specifically 

 human experience, and assimilates man's life, as far as , 

 possible, to natural or animal existence. He will not ' 

 admit that reason has disintegrated the purely instinctive 

 co-operation of gregarious animals, so that it can never 

 be reconstituted. And he has no vision of a higher \ 

 fellowship, created only by the rational and moral nature ' 

 of man, or by that glorious Nature whose image is borne 

 by man alone, of all creatures upon earth. Comte has 

 his psychology of the rational nature, of its character- 

 istic selfishness and its no less characteristic unselfish- 

 ness ; but his doctrine, as we shall see, is profoundly 

 unsatisfactory, and his appeal to biology is a counsel 

 of despair. Instead of saying, "On to the fuller de- 

 velopment of reason and goodness, for the cure of the /, ' & 

 ills under which we groan," Comte says rather, " Back 

 to the life of sense, in which these ills had not yet ""*cjj> ^ 

 emerged." Comtism ignores the idiosyncrasy of man as t,^' 

 a rational being ; hedonism at any rate recognises it in 

 however perverted a form. We must seek to attain 

 some worthier recognition of the great fact. Biology is 

 indeed a parable of the moral life, but still it is only 

 a parable. The resemblances are counterpoised by 

 immense differences. When these differences are 

 neglected an appeal to biology in the interest of morals 

 becomes a piece of mere improved assumption. And 

 Comte is more dependent on this appeal than he ever 

 clearly admits. He is more dependent on it than his 

 principles quite warrant. The only fashion in which 

 Comte is able to say " You ought " is in the formula, 

 " Society is an organism." Other sociologists have / 



