96 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



- The second of Spencer's ruling moral conceptions 

 is that of a balance between egoism and altruism. 

 This balance is twofold ; there is to be a balance be- 

 tween egoistic and altruistic promptings in the indi- 

 vidual; and there is to be a balance between personal 

 gratification and social service in experience. But the 

 two processes are to be developed harmoniously, and 

 are to achieve their tasks together. On one side, 

 this draws from Spencer's general evolutionary phi- 

 losophy. It corresponds to that doctrine of final 

 balance which is so dubious and so characteristic an 

 element in his deductive processes. Historically, it 

 probably owes its suggestion to the doctrine of the 

 stationary state formulated by the Political Econo- 

 mists. To them progress meant largely numerical 

 growth in population. When that tremendous press- 

 ure should have to cease for lack of further space, 

 they looked forward to a stationary state of society ; 

 and J. S. Mill at least plucked up courage to regard 

 the stationary state as a thing to be desired rather 

 than dreaded. In Spencer's system, this conception 

 is given the lordship over ethical thought, strictly so- 

 called; and complexity, or the progressive ideal, is 

 overborne by the ideal of balance, or fixity, as a 

 Utopian or millennial vision. Has this ideal any 

 further authority beyond the place allotted to equi- 

 librium in Spencer's First Principles? Assuredly it 

 has. It represents the hedonistic postulate. It 

 represents an appeal to consciousness, and to that 

 form of consciousness which declares pleasure to be 

 the end of life. Distracted between the craving for 

 personal pleasure and the momentous claims of others, 

 the individual is bidden take comfort from the evolu- 



