112 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



and the social organism ; he is only marking the 

 contrast between two distinct sciences, sociology 

 and biology. 



So far, then, we have got the following account of 

 ethics from Mr. Stephen ; it is the law of the social 

 weal imposed, essentially by precept and example, 

 upon individuals. But there still opens before Mr. 

 Stephen another problem. How does the individual 

 come to receive and obey the aforesaid law ? And 

 why should he do so ? He is led to care for others 

 so we may put Mr. Stephen's view by sympathy. 

 To be aware of pain of another's pain is to be 

 more or less pained oneself ; to be aware of pleasure 

 another's pleasure is to have a pleasing object 

 of contemplation, and thus to be oneself more or 

 less pleased. Two harps stand near each other, you 

 strike a chord upon one, the other takes up the 

 sound that is a picture of the origin of moral feel- 

 ing as Mr. Stephen states it. If any one is inacces- 

 sible to these secondary emotions, evoked by primary 

 emotion on the part of his fellows, his intellect is at 

 fault; he cannot have clearly understood that they 

 are really suffering or really happy. It follows that 

 he is an " idiot," says Mr. Stephen. Now, sympathy 

 is a vague and ambiguous word. If you say that 

 morality rests upon sympathy you may mean almost 

 everything that the moralist can require, or you may 

 mean hardly anything at all. Mr. Stephen, like 

 Adam Smith I take it, means very little indeed. 

 Morality rests upon a rooted psychological incapacity 

 for clearly distinguishing between meum and tuum. 

 It would seem perfectly open to the selfish man to 

 retort the charge of idiocy against moralists of Mr. 



