DARWINISM AND POLITICS. 



better than the policeman theory. , It would 

 mean the moralisation of politics. Thecultiva- 



1 In the same notice in Mind to which I have referred,, 

 above (page 41, note) the writer says this passage is incon- 

 sistent with page 68, where I speak of the patriarchal stage 

 of social evolution as already transcended. Does he really 

 suppose the ethics of the family, in Mr. Spencer's sense, 

 to belong to the patriarchal stage of society ? By the patri- 

 archal stage I understand what Maine and all other writers 

 on the subject mean by it the stage which is prior to 

 political society in the proper sense. On page 68 I argue 

 that to refuse to women the duties and responsibilities of 

 full citizenship is injurious to the common weal, because half 

 the adult population is thus kept (so far as institutions can 

 keep them) in the mental and moral condition of "survivals "' 

 from a superseded stage of society. Here I am arguing that 

 Mr. Spencer is mistaken in making an absolute antithesis 

 between the ethics of the family and the ethics of the State. 

 What is right in the smaller association cannot, I contend, 

 be ultimately wrong in the larger, though it may be more 

 difficult of attainment. I should indeed wish to amend Mr. 

 Spencer's formula for the ethics of the family ("greatest 

 benefits where the merits are smallest "), first of all by giving 

 up the fallacious appearance of mathematical exactness and, 

 secondly, by ceasing to talk about " merits." A baby may 

 receive the greatest amount of care in a household, but not 

 because its merits are smallest. I should prefer to say : 

 " Every one to work according to capacity : every one to 

 receive according to need, so far as compatible with the 

 well-being of the family as a whole." (Of course "capacity " 

 and " need " are not the same things as " wishes.") Is not 

 this our ideal of family ethics? And, if it is a right ideal,. 



