CHAP, ix MR. SPENCERS THREE DOCTRINES 91 



ally this doctrine of rights is overruled and held in 

 check by a doctrine of maximum pleasure. The Utopian 

 state is not praised on account of its freedom, so much 

 as on account of its balance and harmony. All this is 

 altered when we pass to the technically sociological 

 discussion. Here freedom is the good ; not harmony or 

 co-operation per se, but that harmony or co-operation 

 which results from freedom in contrast with that which 

 results from compulsion. This (sociological) doctrine is 

 supported by an appeal to history. The cosmic philo- 

 sophy is silent here, except in so far as it hints that the 

 voluntary co-operation of industrialism, being later in 

 origin than militarism, is presumably higher more 

 truly evolved more complex. There is hardly any 

 trace of hedonism in the argument. If the appeal to 

 history ran into the form, "Freedom has worked 

 better " ; " Freedom has increased average happiness " ; 

 that would, of course, be sound hedonistic doctrine. 

 But Spencer, like Comte, has little taste for detailed 

 historical parallels as a means of appeal to history ; both 

 prefer to look to the mighty onward current, while 

 unfortunately their witnesses, reporting what they see 

 there, agree not together. Comte regards individual 

 freedom as a sign of the weakness inherent in " critical 

 periods," which can be nothing better than narrow 

 bridges leading from one organic period to another ; 

 Spencer regards individual freedom as the highest stage 

 in evolution the great good towards which past condi- 

 tions have steadily moved on. Comte, in the name of fact 

 and science, preaches a new synthesis ; Spencer, speaking 

 in the name of the same great authorities, pronounces a 

 curse upon it. Every attempt at closer social organiza- 

 tion seems to him a relapse into outgrown military 

 forms of society, and an act of treason towards indus- 



