102 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



Spencer's view which he shares * as to the origination 

 of apparently intuitive perceptions. Morality is evolved, 

 according to Mr. Stephen's statement, not at all by 

 means of a growing stock of innate moral sentiments, 

 though he believes in these, but essentially by a super- 

 organic process in the region of human culture and 

 intercourse. Training makes the man. Physiologically 

 there is as good as no difference between the civilised 

 and the savage. This is proved by the fact that the 

 infant child of civilised parents, if stolen by savages, 

 will grow up in the likeness of the savage race, and that 

 the child of savages, if reared among the influences of 

 civilisation, will make a very fair average citizen. 

 Differences there may be, which will hold their ground, 

 even when transplanting has occurred and the new 

 environment has done its work ; ' but these (or so I 

 understand Mr. Stephen) are insignificant in comparison 

 with the broad fact, that every child or man is a human 

 being, homo sapiens, and therefore a moral being ; that 

 each child or man is merged in the community where he 

 has grown up and takes on its colour. Now one is fully 

 prepared to agree with the positions here laid down. A 

 man's a man for a' that ; there is a vast moral unity in 

 the human race. But Mr. Stephen's mode of stating 

 his position seems highly dubious. Anthropologically 

 or physiologically, man may be simply man, neither 

 more nor less ; but we were speaking of sociology, were 

 we not ? If the social organism is changed, are not the 

 constituent individuals changed, sociologically ? Strange 

 metaphysical subtlety of empiricists, if this is to be 

 denied ! To remind us that the members of society are 

 physiologically unchanged is beyond the mark. To 

 point out that civilised citizens would have been savages, 



1 English Thought in 18th Century, i. p. 56. 



