CHAP, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 47 



inference might be urged on men that, as each wants 

 his own happiness, we must all labour for the happiness 

 of all. But the psychological background of these vari- 

 ous pieces of special pleading was the assertion that, 

 first and last, each man seeks, and must seek, his own 

 pleasure. The assertion can at times be made to appear 

 almost self-evident, though a few minutes' handling by 

 a skilled cross-examiner l will make it look very foolish 

 indeed. 



From that psychology to Comte's psychology, from 

 old-fashioned phenomenalism to new-fashioned posi- 

 tivism, is a somewhat startling change. Shall we not 

 welcome it as a change in the right direction ? Certainly 

 a less libellous account of human nature is given when 

 we are told that it is composed of a group of selfish and 

 a group of unselfish motives, than when the old view is 

 reiterated, according to which human nature is root and 

 branch, first and last, by eternal necessity, selfish and 

 only selfish. But we must still inquire whether Comte's 

 amended statement will pass muster scientifically, and, 

 in the first place, psychologically. Now, Comte has no 

 belief in a science of psychology. Psychology ought 

 either to fall back upon physiology and phrenology, or 

 to merge itself in sociology. Taken by itself, Comte re- 

 gards it as a pseudo-science. But the neglected beauty 

 has a capital opportunity for punishing the erring swain 

 when Comte begins to talk psychology, for he talks 

 nonsense. One may be confident of support from 

 modern psychology in asserting that every action, how- 

 ever altruistic, is yet in some sense egoistic. It is my 

 action. I should not have made the motive mine, it 

 would not have moved me, unless I had found myself 

 in its results. Mere altruism is mere irrelevance, the 



1 C Prof. Sox-ley's Ethics of Naturalism, pp. 23, 24. 



