IIO FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



It is necessary to emphasise one other feature 

 in Mr. Stephen's evolutionary view of ethics. He 

 insists that, in such a society as that of mankind, the 

 organic whole may change while the individual or- 

 ganisms are unchanged. In a somewhat obscure 

 passage he contrasts this most complex case, ex- 

 emplified in human society, with simpler cases, in 

 which the individual organism and the social or- 

 ganism are modified simultaneously. One cannot 

 help thinking that the whole distinction is a piece 

 of very doubtful philosophy. What Mr. Stephen 

 wishes to bring out by it is the fact that the social 

 organism exerts its influences by the spiritual forces 

 of thought and language, apart from any necessary 

 reference to physiological change. So completely 

 is Mr. Stephen indifferent to the moral applications 

 of Mr. Spencer's view which he shares 1 as to 

 the origination of apparently intuitive perceptions. 

 Morality is evolved, according to Mr. Stephen's 

 statement, not at all by means of a growing stock 

 of innate moral sentiments, though he believes in 

 these, but essentially by a super-organic process in 

 the region of human culture and intercourse. Train- 

 ing makes the man. Physiologically there is as good 

 as no difference between the civilised and the savage. 

 This is proved by the fact that the infant child of 

 civilised parents, if stolen by savages, will grow up 

 in the likeness of the savage race, and that the child 

 of savages, if reared among the influences of civilisa- 

 tion, will make a very fair average citizen. Dif- 

 ferences there may be, which will hold their ground, 

 even when transplanting has occurred and the new 



1 English Thought in i8th Century, i. p. 56. 



