1 82 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



progress, the latter also for his genetic treatment of sociology by 

 the "dialectic of growth," Drummond with emphasis on struggle 

 for the life of others and Giddings as the exponent of consciousness 

 of kind. 



ADAM SMITH (1723-1790) 

 Fellow-Feeling v. Self-Interest 



Out of the philosophical and ethical writings of Locke, Butler, 

 Hume, Hutcheson, Paley and others, all previous to the period 

 selected as the starting point for our discussion, developed the 

 two schools of egoistic and universal hedonism * with a more or 

 less positivistic and empirical basis. In Adam Smith's Theory of 

 Moral Sentiments, published in 1759, we have a compromise be- 

 tween the two, both self-interest and sympathy or " fellow-feel- 

 ing " being recognized as primary endowments of man. Without 

 using the historic method emphasized so much later, or attaining 

 the positivism of the modern period, he formulates and illustrates 

 by numerous examples principles later supported by historical 

 investigation. His doctrine of sympathy was given great promi- 

 nence in the writings of Comte, 2 J. S. Mill, and Spencer, and made 

 by Fiske, Nathaniel Shaler 3 and Giddings 4 the key to the under- 

 standing of the process of association. 



Smith's distinction between custom and fashion 5 and his dis- 

 cussion of the influence of these on the individual laid the founda- 

 tion for the later theories of Durkheim and Tarde; his theory of 

 the part played in individual conduct by an appreciation of the 

 judgment of his fellow-men 6 has been elaborated by recent social 

 psychologists, 7 and his teaching concerning the development of 

 fellow-feeling in ever-enlarging circles 8 is akin to James' doctrine 



1 For egoistic or scientific hedonism, Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, pp. 172 f. For 

 universalistic hedonism, ibid., p. 41 1 ; Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, pp. 163-200. 



3 It is significant that Comte set small store by any of the classical economists save 

 Smith, and this, doubtless for one reason, because of the place he gives to sympathy. 



3 Especially in The Neighbor. Shaler connects sympathy with the sense of 

 touch and suggests a biological reason for this connection, ibid., pp. 32 f. 



4 With Giddings phrased " Consciousness of Kind." 

 6 Theory of Moral Sentiments, pt. 5, chs. I and II. 



8 Ibid., pp. 78 f., 307 f. 7 Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, ch. VII. 



8 Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 217 f., 381 f. 



