CHAP, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 1 15 



of his mind, to his impending reassertion of the 

 cells versus the organism, to his postulate of per- 

 sonal pleasure as an ultimate test. But there is a 

 more immediate difference from Comte, in Mr. 

 Stephen's distrust of sociology and of all forms of 

 authority. Keeping that in mind, we might almost 

 say that Mr. Stephen uses the biological analogy to 

 reach sociological but not moral truth. With Comte 

 sociology was the new ethic ; or, at the lowest, soci- 

 ology, the science of corporate action, was the neces- 

 sary basis of ethics as the science of individual conduct. 

 Mr. Stephen, however, speaks contemptuously of the 

 attainments of sociology. He thinks it scarcely a 

 science, and values its standpoint merely as a step- 

 ping-stone to a new statement of ethics, in which the 

 biological analogy defines rather than justifies the 

 moral law. It follows that the biological appeal has 

 not the moral or quasi-moral weight which it had 

 with Comte. Nothing takes its place. The appeal 

 to consequences admittedly breaks down. In fact 

 there is a marked absence of authority in ethics as 

 presented by Stephen. Comte says, "You are 

 members one of another, be loyal members of the 

 social whole." Stephen says, " Social tissue requires 

 you to do so-and-so, and of course you are very de- 

 pendent on the social tissue ; still, you have a centre 

 of being in yourself, and there is always the possibility 

 left that it may pay you to defy society ; very rarely 

 indeed will it do so, but sometimes, no doubt, it will, 

 if you are unsocial enough, idiotic enough, bad enough." 

 Comte allots no sphere at all to the individual, while 

 Stephen, like other hedonists, gives him a sphere, but 

 makes it fall outside of morals. What is moral is not 



