138 COMTE TO BENJAMIN K1DD PART in 



and animal kingdoms. And for him the union of 

 evolution with ethics means not analogy but identity ; 

 it means that man, the individual organism, is held to 

 become moral by succeeding in the struggle for exist- 

 ence a sufficiently startling paradox. Huxley makes 

 no explicit reference to Spencer's formula, tracing a single 

 harmonious process, right back to the primeval nebula 

 and right on to moralised man. He is willing to gener- 

 alise evolution as much as you please, but it seems to him 

 that there is a seriously novel element introduced at one 

 point in the process, cutting it as it were in two. " When 

 the cosmopoietic energy works through sentient beings 

 there arises among its other manifestations that which 

 we call pain or suffering." And suffering is most intense 

 in man, especially as he rises in the scale of civilisation, 

 " under those conditions which are essential to the full 

 development of his noblest powers." l Animal struggle 

 runs on into human struggle, but such struggle is 

 immoral. We must not wantonly add to the pain 

 suffered by our fellows ; we must " let the ape and tiger 

 die." The Spencerian formula so we may read between 

 the lines makes no room for those elements which, to 

 Huxley's mind, are of real moral significance. As for 

 Comte's attempt to view social life as the evolution of 

 one orderly and peaceful organism, or as to Mr. Leslie 

 Stephen's gloss upon that attempt, or as to Professor 

 Alexander's bloodless and well-nigh painless Darwinism 

 in the shape of competing ethical types, Huxley says 

 nothing. He cannot separate evolution from the cruel 

 Darwinian struggle in its plain and literal sense. He 

 puts ethics and evolution as far asunder as the poles. 

 We might almost style him a valuable if unexpected 

 recruit to the cause of Miss Frances Power Cobbe. 



1 p. 10. 



