158 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



method of sociology must be the method of all the 

 natural sciences. It also must go and see the world 

 making, not where the conditions are already ab- 

 normal beyond recall, or where man, by irregular 

 action, has already obscured everything but the con- 

 ditions of failure, but in lower Nature which makes 

 no mistakes, and in the fairer reaches of a higher 

 world, where the quality and the stability of the 

 progress are guarantees that the eternal order of 

 Nature has had her uncorrupted way." 1 



Most noteworthy perhaps, in comparison with 

 Comte, is the attempt to justify the definition of 

 virtue as " altruism " by some biological considera- 

 tions. We shall speak more in detail of this pres- 

 ently. If it should stand, would it not be another 

 great stroke of luck for Comte ? or, ought I to say, a 

 further vindication of his prophetic insight ? He did 

 not foresee the evolutionary doctrine of the origin of 

 species ; he even deprecated such theorising. Yet 

 the inquiry has gone forward, and the doctrine has 

 been promulgated, and has set everybody using bio- 

 logical language. So too Comte did not think of 

 justifying his favourite virtue of altruism by his 

 favourite science of biology; yet that also has now 

 been tried ; and if the views for which Drummond is 

 champion hold their ground, that also will have been 

 accomplished. One can only repeat once more that 

 it is extraordinary to find a Christian thinker such as 

 Drummond casting in his lot so unreservedly with the 

 programme of naturalistic science. 



It is from Darwin, however, that the new discussion 

 takes its departure. Its divergence from Darwinism 



1 Ascent of Man, p. 57. 



