OF THE GOOD. 189 



tinguished from the animal species, he fastened upon 

 two traits of human nature, the selfish and the opposed 

 instinct, Egoism and Altruism, the personal and the 

 social factor. 



Beyond this statement, which recalls to some extent se. 



Neglects 



Adam Smith's theory of moral sentiments, Comte does pwio- 



sophical 



not seem to have made any real contribution to Ethics, ethics - 

 for he neither discusses the conception of duty and 

 responsibility nor troubles himself to define the end 

 and aim of moral conduct, be this conceived as con- 

 sisting in virtue or in happiness. He does not seem to 

 realise that moral goods or The Good can in reality only 

 exist and be realised in individual minds by persons 

 who, though forming a community or society, must 

 nevertheless be possessed of an inner life and enjoy 

 individual freedom. Discarding altogether introspection 

 as a means of studying human nature, he directs all his 

 attention to the external phenomena and events of 

 history. It is in and through a review of this that he 

 hopes to gain a knowledge of human nature. In fact 

 he discards entirely the individual and regards exclusively 

 the collective aspect. Society is an organism, and as 

 little as we can study the phenomena of life if we lose 

 sight of the fact of organisation, just as little can we 

 study the human species if we lose sight of its exist- 

 ence in the aggregate of society and its historical 

 development. 



Two volumes of the first and most important of his 

 larger works are thus taken up by a historical survey, 

 by a philosophy of history. This he conceives to con- 

 sist in the gradual ascendancy of the specifically human 



