140 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART m 



goodness is ! You have told me nothing ; . yqu have 

 taken for granted the conception of goodness. Next, 

 hedonism is discussed. Mr. Alexander dismisses as 

 an over-refinement the idealist criticism, urged by 

 T. H. Green or Mr. F. H. Bradley, according to which 

 a sum of perishing pleasures is an impossibility. But 

 he himself argues that pleasure cannot be the moral 

 end, on the ground that there are ultimate irreducible 

 qualitative differences between one kind of pleasure 

 and another. Surely this does not seem altogether 

 conclusive, especially since Mr. Alexander goes on to 

 maintain that his own formula incorporates hedonism 

 by insisting that some pleasures ought to be aimed at, 

 viz. the pleasures of goodness. But there is no doubt 

 that he is right, from the point of view of the moral 

 consciousness, in holding that if pleasure enters into 

 the end of [right] action, it cannot be pleasure as such 

 but desirable pleasure, i.e. morally desirable pleasure. 

 Lastly, Vitality is examined ; and Mr. Stephen is 

 instructed that all that is true in this formula is cov- 

 ered more exactly by the abstract formula, equilib- 

 rium. 



So far as we have yet inspected this doctrine, it is 

 evidently akin to the older evolutionism of Spencer 

 or Leslie Stephen. One organism, or one set of 

 forces, falls to be considered ; goodness is a harmony 

 in the organism or among the forces ; badness is dishar- 

 mony. At first sight one thinks that Mr. Alexander 

 has materially improved upon Mr. Stephen's posi- 

 tion. With Mr. Stephen, the individual man and the 

 social whole fall violently asunder. But Mr. Alexan- 

 der knows of a twofold moral equilibrium, applying 

 alike to man and to society. Also one observes the 



