106 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



mals, the whole explains the parts or is prior to the 

 parts ; that you cannot explain the whole as a me- 

 chanical combination of separate parts, but on the 

 contrary, must have a knowledge of the whole before 

 you can correctly define or explain any one part. 1 

 Since man is essentially dependent on society since 

 man is by nature social therefore we call society an 

 organism. It is doubtful whether we can credit this 

 thesis to the contributions which Mr. Stephen has re- 

 ceived from evolutionism. It goes back not to 

 search more deeply as far as Comte, who had no 

 patience with idle inquiries into the origin of species. 

 But in Mr. Stephen's mind it is lighted up and vivi- 

 fied by modern evolutionary science especially by 

 the doctrine of a " moving equilibrium " between 

 organism and environment. 



In the next place, Mr. Stephen may be said to 

 combine these two positions in a syllogism, which 

 issues in a third proposition by way of conclusion. 

 Since all organisms strive after maximum efficiency, 

 and since society is an organism, 2 society also will 

 strive for maximum efficiency. But here to a cer- 

 tain extent hypothesis begins we may very well un- 

 derstand moral rules as the outcome of this striving, 

 or as the formulated conditions of maximum social ef- 

 ficiency. The effort or nisus of the social organism 

 has broken into consciousness in the individual mem- 

 bers of society in the shape of moral commands or 

 ideals of duty. A Darwinian doctrine of competing 

 organisms is scarcely if at all found in Mr. Stephen. 



1 p. 32 ; cf. also p. 1 10. 



2 We shall see, however, presently that Mr. Stephen prefers a slightly 

 different phraseology. 



