52 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PARTI 



when Comte begins to talk psychology, for he talks 

 nonsense. One may be confident of support from 

 modern psychology in asserting that every action, 

 however altruistic, is yet in some sense egoistic. It 

 is my action. I should not have made the motive 

 mine, it would not have moved me, unless I had 

 found myself in its results. Mere altruism is mere 

 irrelevance, the action of a lunatic, not of a sane man. 

 Old-fashioned empiricism was right in looking for a 

 personal motive in each action, though gravely in the 

 wrong when it called that personal motive, uniformly 

 and monotonously, by the name of pleasure. But 

 again, with scarcely less confidence, one may assert 

 that even the most egoistic actions are, in a sense, 

 altruistic. Man is so radically social that his sins no 

 less than his virtues are stamped with the signet of 

 his nature. He sins socially. If he does not serve 

 others he uses up others in his own service. Nay, 

 even the cynic is only a social being in a pet. He 

 retains the hope that some one is watching him. 

 Diogenes, basking in his tub, has an exquisite pleas- 

 ure in requesting the great Alexander to stand out 

 of the light. Outwardly withdrawn from society, he 

 is inwardly dependent on it; for admiration, or for 

 criticism, but at any rate for notice. Of course, 

 Comtists may rejoin that they mean to allow 

 for all this. But does their formulation of the 

 case satisfy the demands of science ? Surely 

 Comte, of all men, will not maintain that scientific 

 accuracy is superfluous, or that conduct can be 

 safely guided in the light of slovenly and inaccurate 

 thinking \ 



A second criticism is offered by Sir J. Fitzjames 



