234 LIGHT SCIENCE FOE LEISURE HOURS. 



the moral laws which they have been in the habit of 

 regarding as imparted from without, are regarded by 

 science as springing from within the body social. 



It would be impossible to describe in detail the 

 various sections of this interesting work. Each 

 chapter might well form the subject of a complete 

 essay, or of a volume of discussion. The criterion 

 which Mr. Stephen establishes in the progress of his 

 work as the general principle of conduct is simply this, 

 that a man is virtuous or the reverse, a worthy or an 

 unworthy member of the community, in so far as he 

 does or does not conform to the type denned by the 

 healthy condition of the social organism of which he 

 forms part. This must not be confounded with the 

 doctrine, Soyez de votre siecle, for the characteristics 

 of an age may be chiefly characteristics of disease, 

 and conformity with them may, therefore, be not 

 virtue, but the reverse. The type denned by the 

 healthy condition of the body social, not that denned 

 by its actual condition, is that with which conformity 

 is desirable. 



It will be seen that this doctrine limits conduct in 

 two directions. As the good soldier neither lags 

 behind nor goes unduly in advance of the main body 

 (not even if he be the captain), so the man who best 

 fulfils his duties to the social body of which he forms 

 part, must neither fall short of the standard necessary 

 for the healthy condition of the social organism, nor go 

 unduly in advance. Take, for instance, such a quality 

 as loyalty, in its ordinary but rather degraded sense. 



