CHAP, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 57 



it seems as if benevolence were the master principle 

 of human conduct. In such passages Butler takes 

 his stand, where Comte afterwards rallied, with the 

 prophets of altruism. Sometimes, again, Butler seems 

 to speak as if conscience guided us just where rational 

 self-love would conduct us were it but sufficiently far- 

 seeing. In such words Butler condescends to the 

 cant, not of our century, but of his own, though he 

 does so with manifest uneasiness, and with a bad 

 grace. But, perhaps most frequently, he anticipates 

 Herbert Spencer in pleading for a balance between 

 egoism and altruism. If we must define the principle 

 underlying good conduct, why, we find there are two 

 ultimate principles. At the back of our moral nature 

 there is, if not an irreducible multitude of special com- 

 mands, yet an irreducible dualism a pair of regnant 

 principles, and the line dividing them must be drawn 

 by a sort of practical tact. Theory is helpless to reach 

 past this "dual control." 



It is strange to find this doctrine of balance, this 

 glorifying of compromise, renewed by Herbert Spencer 

 the second great name in the annals of sociology, 

 the inheritor of Comte's problems and Comte's vocab- 

 ulary. He also assumes the psychological legitimacy 

 of the contrast between " Egoism " and " Altruism " ; 

 but altruism does not rank with him as a compend of 

 all the virtues. It is only one half of virtue, though 

 possibly, in the language of children, "the biggest 

 half." 



Here again, as formerly, we have to ask, Which is 

 the juster development of the view in question ? If 

 we accept altruism as a conception which is psycho- 

 logically valid and ethically important, ought we, like 



