58 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PARTI 



Comte, to press it as hard as we can, or rather, like 

 Spencer, to urge that altruism is good only when 

 balanced by a judicious regard to our own egoistic 

 rights? Perhaps the latter view has more of the 

 remnants of wisdom in it. But the truth is, both 

 views are impracticable ; Spencer's no less than 

 Comte's ; a doctrine of balance no less than a doc- 

 trine which ignores self. The double-minded man is, 

 and remains, unstable. It is impossible to serve two 

 masters. A true moral analysis must recognise some- 

 thing higher in the lowliest duty, and in the common- 

 est act of kindness, than private convenience, whether 

 that of ego or alter. " One person I have to make 

 good myself. My duty to my neighbour is much 

 more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make 

 him happy if I may." 1 Yes indeed ; but, in making 

 my neighbour happy, I make myself good; or, if I 

 fail to make myself good, I shall not long make my 

 neighbour happy. Both are duties; or rather both 

 are aspects of the good life, in whose unity they are 

 merged. And in both alike there is a reference to 

 something higher, call it duty ; call it God's will. 

 In faithfulness to one's own moral vocation, social 

 and spiritual in faithfulness to " my station and its 

 duties," primarily and literally in the kingdom of 

 Great Britain, but, by ultimate analysis, in that better 

 kingdom which cannot be moved, one is delivered 

 from the extravagances of altruism, and from the 

 imbecilities of compromise, into the very peace of 

 God. 



Seeing that men are quite sufficiently selfish, Comte's 

 rhetoric in praise of altruism has probably done little 



1 R. L. Stevenson, A Christmas Sermon. 



