From Comte to Benjamin Kidd; the appeal to biology or evolution for human guidance

Front matter

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Preface

The historical sketch and criticism here attempted had its proximate origin in two consecutive years' work with a senior class of sociology at Lancashire College. In 1896-97 essays were prescribed on topics suggested by Mr. Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution; while the seniors of 1897-98 attended lectures covering rather more ground. The material thus collected has been again revised and again considerably added to. The literature of the subject is always growing. Some books of consequence, old or new, must have been overlooked. Still, it is hoped that the subject itself has well-defined limits. The appeal to biology, outlined by Comte, newly defined and emphasised by Darwinism, has now been stated in the most extreme form logically possible. Mr. Kidd's book holds that significant position.

In studying the questions raised, the author has found himself, though with certain grave reserves, more and more thrown back upon philosophical principles learned at Glasgow, above twenty years ago, from the present Master of Balliol College.

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Vlil PREFACE

I wish to express thanks for kind help on different points : to Professor Henry Jones of Glasgow University ; to the Rev. A. Halliday Douglas, Cambridge ; and, among others, very special thanks to Professor J. Arthur Thomson and Mr. Norman Wyld. Both Mr. Thomson and Mr. Wyld, while busy with important work on the theory of natural selection, found time to give an amateur valuable information bearing on the meaning and merits of Weismann's doctrine of Panmixia.

R. M.

Chapter I Introductory

Science offers to supersede religion as guide to conduct — In form of theoretical sociology — Appealing to biology and evolution — Sociology distinguished from politics — From economics — From social philosophy — Akin to evolutionary ethics — Our point of view; morality taken for granted

Chapter II

comte's life and the principles of his teaching

Comte as founder — His life — His books — The term " Sociology " — " Statics " (cf. Spencer) — " Dynamics " — Divisions of the Polity — Comte's religion — The term "Positive" — Four authorities superseded — Comte on psychology — And on ethics — Law of the three stages — Criticism — Transition to the study of Comte's relation to science — He repudiates dogmatic atheism and materialism — His scale of values in the hierarchy of the sciences — Spencer's criticism

Chapter III The Appeal To Biology

The " social organism " in other writers — In Comte — Idealist supplement to the biological appeal — Professor Mackenzie's statement

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of the idealist view — Intuitionalist criticism of the appeal — Comte uses a biological parable — Consistent phenomenalism means (if not evolutionism) hedonism — Comtism and hedonism two half-truths

[Note A. On Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World — "Biological religion," according to Finlayson — Drummond appeals to biogenesis — His religion is Calvinistic, rather, or Gnostic — His noble zeal for continuity in knowledge]

Chapter IV The Appeal To History

In Dr. Hatch — Criticism — In Ritschl, how far Comtist — Other appeals; to historic parallels — Example from Comte — To the whole tendency of history — More usual in Comte ; examples — Criticism — Mr. Mackenzie's criticism — Guidance to be gained from history is limited — Comte's varied and capricious appeals to it

Chapter V The Doctrine Of Altruism

A fragment of ethics — On a psychological basis — Opposes psychological hedonism — Healthily, but incompetently — Fitzjames Stephen's objection to it; we cannot alter nature's forces! — That is good determinism, but bad morals — Ethically, is a new conception of virtue — Scientifically worthless [Mr. Baldwin] — " Balance" is preferred to altruism by Butler at times — By Spencer — Criticism

Chapter VI

comte's lawgiving

Its principles — The separation of the temporal and spiritual powers — Political character of Comte's sociology — Details — Summary

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Chapter VII Darwinian And Spencerian Conceptions Of Evolution — Darwin

Evolution came as a surprise — Darwin deals with biology — With species only — Taking "Struggle" from Malthus, he perceives in it (natural) "Selection" — A true cause, but minute; an immensely slow process — Compare the replies to Malthus — Sexual Selection accelerating — Or Use-Inheritance — But too much Lamarck, making variation not " casual," but purposeful, would render unnecessary the " selective " action of " nature " — Recent doubts as to use-inheritance

Chapter VIII Darwinian And Spencerian Conceptions Of Evolution — Spencer

A cosmic philosophy — Resting on correlation of forces — And on hypothesis of organic evolution — Emphasising natural (physical, material) law — Darwinism as a cosmic philosophy ? Alexander

— Cf. Lotze — Cf. Fiske — Spencer values true use -inheritance as accounting for a priori knowledge — But natural selection is not the source of his laissez /aire doctrine; he looks forward to a future " balance " — His relation to embryology — Evolution means growing complexity — In terms of matter — Two other phases — Dissolution as death — As catastrophe — Equilibrium is theoretical and prophetic — Spencer's sequence of the three phases — Criticisms: on the assumed beginning of the process — On its isolation — On equilibrium, as involving a different point of view

— Reason is more than a new phase of complexity — The whole process breaks up into a series of separate evolutions in complexity

Chapter IX

MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES OF HUMAN WELFARE

Goodness is more evolved conduct, i.e. is " wisdom " — An appeal to (cosmic) history! — It is balance, of egoism and altruism — An xvi ANALYTICAL CONTENTS

appeal to economics and to (hedonistic) psychology — It is individual freedom — An appeal to rights, and to (human) history, emerging from militarism — For which Spencer feels an exaggerated dread — Spencer masses facts rather than unifies knowledge — The " social organism " is only a phrase with him

Chapter X

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S SCIENCE OF ETHICS

Stephen a utilitarian — Who came to believe in evolution as a scientific fact — Begins here with facts; ethical judgments exist — Organisms seek maximum efficiency — If social " tissue " is " organic " — Then ethical laws may be the conditions of maximum social efficiency — (Nature cares for individuals) — Nature says, "Be strong! " — Ethics says, "Society, be strong! " — The ethical is the typical society, and therefore ethical judgments are binding — But the type is actual, not ideal ! — Society is a complex whole, changing while its parts are unchanged — Criticism — Sanction for individual goodness lies in sympathy merely — Sometimes we are too good for our own interests ! — Compared with Comte, lacks authority — With Spencer; calls "health " the ideal, and ridicules "balance" — With Darwin; not struggle of individual with individual, but of individual with society — With Utilitarianism; discourages the calculation of consequences — Most of his positions may be accepted in a deeper sense

Chapter XI "darwinism In Morals" — Miss Cobbe's Protest

Darwinism may be applied to morals by analogy — Or, as here, by explaining man's evolutionary origin — Miss Cobbe attacks Darwin's explanation of the rise of morals out of intelligence plus sympathy — And the hypothetical palliation of murder — Little trace of natural selection in Darwin's ethical statement — Darwin's analysis may be accepted, not his view of reason

ANALYTICAL CONTENTS xvii

Chapter XII Darwinism In Politics — Bagehot

Applies Darwinism by analogy — Evolution transforms imperceptibly

— By nerve tissue in our case; but nothing depends on this assertion of use-inheritance by Bagehot; it is a mere illustration — Not ethnological, but political questions — Problems both of progress and of differentiation — 1st, Custom as the remedy for primitive wildness in the " fit " — Criticism — 2nd, Customs winnowed by the test of war — 3rd, Free discussion — Race blending, etc., as minor factors — Three limitations on the Darwinian principle in Bagehot's application of it

[Note B. On Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics — Inconsistency between the different essays — One interesting hint]

Chapter XIII Darwinism In Ethics — Professor Alexander

Fusion of idealism and naturalism — Moral judgments are facts, but the assertion of free will is absurd — Criticism ; capricious ; ignores the content of moral judgments and the germ of a system in them

— Punishment grouped with dynamics? — Statics are truly, though imperfectly, moral — Goodness is a twofold " equilibrium " — This doctrine is enforced against other definitions — In the Dynamics equilibrium is revealed as endlessly changing, and is called " compromise" — Ideals compete like organisms for survival — Criticism; not {a) true Darwinian struggle, nor (Jj) true extinction — The new ideals are not wholly new — Ideals are complementary — So far as he Darwinises he is false to morality

Chapter XIV Reaction From Darwinism — Huxley

Reaction as to ethics — Due to the vision of struggle and pain — Not sympathy but justice is essential — It must suspend outright the cosmic process — Older evolutionism (Greece, India) gave no guidance — Criticism; nature and spirit are opposed — Yet connected, and reason fulfils the cosmic process by transforming it xviii ANALYTICAL CONTENTS

Chapter XV Reaction From Darwinism — Drummond's Ascent Of Man

His precursors — His sympathy for Spencer — His Comtist terminology — Seeks a biological basis for altruism — Corrects Darwin — Not like Miss Cobbe — Largely like Huxley — But seeks a fairer statement of the facts — Brings in a second biological function (out of three !), viz. reproduction — Wallace, on the selection of reason — Leads up to doctrine of "Arrest of the Body " — Cf. Cleland on the human skull — Emphasis on maternity and weakness of human infant — Criticism; "egoism" and its struggle purely evil? — Or male sex with its justice? — Is domesticity = sociality? — Has Drummond shown a factor in progress? — A better philosophy claims all nature for God

Chapter XVI

REITERATION OF DARWINISM: ELIMINATION MADE ABSOLUTE — MR. A. SUTHERLAND

A strong book with some weaknesses — Works out the origin of moral feeling by natural selection — Restates Drummond-like position as Darwinian (?) — And exemplifies " arrival " of forms — Biology ; fitness to survive — And to breed, and rear — Quantity first relied on — Then quality — This develops sympathy — Which becomes serviceable — Anthropology ; everything depends on the approaches to monogamy — Sociology ; progress is by elimination of the inferior — Even when it seems to find more rapid means

— (Yet he allows some progress by imitation!) — History ; retrogression is possible ! — For he hates all militarism — On the whole he does not believe in history — Or in reason — Ethics ; Has dealt only with one half of goodness ! — Egoism must balance sympathy ! — Balance will grow automatic! — Criticism; no right to call sympathy moral, if only half of morality — Nature does not select one quality at a time! — Selection said to have worked — Not true natural selection, though — Why is goodness not automatic already? — Do beauty and goodness exist, or do they riot?

— "Yes and no ! "

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Chapter XVII The Metaphysics Of Natural Selection

I. Chance in relation to purpose, as accident — As absence of design —

In relation to law; as blind law — As blind combination of laws

— Compare with the last the scientific or mechanical view of the world; a number of separate substances ruled by a number of independent laws — Good enough for science, not for philosophy

— Darwin ought not to assume things as really disconnected, merely because he has not needed to investigate their connection

— As if organism and environment were accidentally brought together — Or as if organism and organism were mere rivals — (They are rivals !) — Or as if force and force were disconnected?

II. Darwin treats variation as casual, i.e. as a thing with no bearing in itself on the purpose of the species — His theory allows this assumption — But does not prove it — We all habitually understand the theory in that sense, e.g. in contrasting natural selection with use-inheritance — On the fact, evidence is wanted — Conceivably variation may choose very irregularly between many fixed possibilities — This seems to point back to disconnected laws, as in last section

III. Even on Darwin's own view he is hardly entitled to call the process of evolution natural selection — Aggregate range of possible variation is fixed by the nature of the material — Two agencies must be taken together — Of the two the varying organism, not the blindly selecting environment, seems the better to account for rise of new qualities — Summary of I., II., III.

IV. Kinds of natural selection, A, B, and C — B exists ! — If organic evolution is a fact, C exists ! — Accelerating any other evolutionary force that may exist, and of course involving B — If A is found alongside of C, A must have a separate field where C cannot enter, else inconsiderable — Natural selection (C) lasts as long as nature is nature — Even along with (the more rapid force of) animal intelligence — True reason checks it — Does natural selection ever work by itself (A) ? — Higher animals with fewer births evolve as quickly as lower; has a new force arisen? or was natural selection never the leading force? — [Can we regard intelligence as the new evolving force? Dr. Mellone assumes its operation everywhere !]

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V. Can natural selection apply to men? — Biologically — Struggle with

beasts is over — Famine (A) is rare, and of doubtful tendency — Pestilence (C) does harm — Vice (B) — Crime (B) — War (selects the wrong way) — Religious celibacy (i&.) — Summary — Sociologically — Mr. Kidd's insistence on struggle is really biological; is unproved; is not an insistence on natural selection — Ethically

— Mr. Alexander's competition of " Ideals" is exaggerated — And itself implies reason and sympathy — Mr. Sutherland's elimination of evil doers ignores positive causes of moral progress — Exemplified typically in Jesus Christ

VI. If natural selection does not operate where reason and conscience exist, it yet may originate them in the loose and incorrect sense in which natural selection is said to originate things ! — If reason, etc., were, as most suppose, evolved and selected — How selected?

— Have adjacent races died out?

VII. Other idealist views — Professor Ritchie praises natural selection more fully, in vague terms and in some passages — Mr. Sandeman rejects it, because he believes in the teleological perfection of every organism — But is it possible to get over the impression produced by rudimentary organs ? — It is enough if the whole of nature is good, and its parts relatively fit — Dr. Stirling believes the casual variation which makes an individual can never make a type — Is it certain that every individual is born differentiated? — Or that any differences are incapable of growing by cumulation into a type? — Possible value of the hypothesis of natural selection, even if a fiction

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Chapter XVIII A "fairy Tale Of Science"?

An intenser assertion of struggle — Not on ground of experiment; evidence is ambiguous — On ground of a theory of heredity — Darwin's theory (Pangenesis) assumed derivation of embryonic qualities from qualities and tissues of parental organism — Use-inheritance possible or probable on this view — But "Atavism" forced the concession, some " gemmules " had passed on undeveloped from earlier generations till they found their chance — Galton's figures for resemblance to ancestors — Hence theories asserting " continuity of the germ plasm " — Parable of the hierarchy — Galton (" Stirp ") does not absolutely deny the possibility of use-inheritance — But in Weismann's earlier and more consistent views, founded on by Mr. Kidd, amphimixis is the only cause of variation — Extrusion of one of the " polar bodies " securing ( ?) non-identity of all offspring of same pair — Permutations and combinations of qualities of unicellular organisms — Nature selecting fittest adults, and in them best germ plasm — Parable of the suckers — Of the Nile — No new quality arises, but amount of each telling quality increases — Qualities arose originally, Lamarck fashion, from environment, when unicellular life lay open to its pressure — Unicellular organisms (propagating by fission) and germ plasm are potentially immortal — Correlation alleged between sex and (natural) death; now sex is absent from the unicellular world — Natural selection might account for the predominance (if not origin) of sex if Weismann would assume the necessary competition — Romanes alleges that natural selection might account for predominance of habit of dying natural death; but would not death by violence sufficiently prevent any race (immersed in the struggle) from falling into wholesale decrepitude? — Origin of sex and death a mystery; or " chance " variation ! or effect of molecular constitution of germ plasm ! — Weismann's appeal to " natural selection," while he denies " struggle," is metaphysical in the worst sense — Recapitulation, and note of some of Weisxxii ANALYTICAL CONTENTS

mann's changes of opinion before 1893 — Especially this change: Environment may do something to modify germ plasm ! — Making true use-inheritance conceivable, though not inevitable

— Mr. Kidd is anachronous — Panmixia, the absence of natural selection, is held to involve indefinite retrogression; important; questionable

Chapter XIX

hyper-darwinism in sociology: struggle made absolute —

MR. KIDD

Resemblance to Comte — Intenser emphasis on biology [cf. Mr. Platt- Ball] — (1) Panmixia = degeneration is inconsistent with dreams of socialism or of final balance — Selfishness, however, may not care for remote consequences — [Ought Panmixia further to imply extinction?] Also, social "statics" are blotted out — And evolution becomes almost identical with progress — Could not Mr. Kidd save many essential positions without this assumption? — (2) Next, if progress implies struggle — And selfish reason makes unwilling to struggle for good of the race, supernatural counterpoise of religion must help, as hitherto — Now, Weismann had riddled his own position with qualifications — Kidd also appeals to biology by a doctrine of the social organism; but everything here depends on philosophy, not biology — (3) First, the doctrine of reason; reason is formal, as with A. J. Balfour, Darwin, Drummond — For Mr. Kidd also holds that biological law applies without a break to rational man — Yet reason disturbs process of evolution — And Bagehot, Stephen, Drummond have noted other changes due to it

— Can it be wholly evil ? — Balfour and Kidd repudiate Kant or Coleridge's deeper sense of " reason " — But they cannot avoid such sense if it lies in the word and in the fact — (4) Secondly, doctrine of religion as anti-rational — Not = "future judgment"; that is rational ! — Can we believe the irrational? — Does not Kidd tamper with Christian equalitarianism? — Biologically; variation may be purposeful and professive — Historically; reason is progressive; by rational methods — Religion its fulfilment — It needs a force to give it motive and constancy

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Chapter XX Summary And Conclusions

Self-contradictions — Cornte is arbitrary — Biology has been reinforced by evolutionary theories, yielding different forms of sociological doctrine — I. Analogy, without struggle, Stephen — 2. Continuity, without struggle, Spencer, Alexander (partly) — 3. Analogy of Darwinism, Bagehot, Alexander, Ritchie (?) — 4. Continuity of natural selection, Sutherland, Drummond(?),Kidd — None of these wholly succeed; Old authorities will return ! — Or idealism, which is compatible with the old authorities, may give us a more satisfying doctrine of evolution — What have we been taught? — (1) A social organism exists — Idealism reinforces this lesson — (2) Struggle has been useful; will it not be? as discussion? as competition?

— In light of idealism this seems possible — Of fact, probable — Must not exaggerate its place; it is subordinate in life of reason — [Mallock] — Finally, does progressiveness of evolution make it a guide to conduct? — Difficulties in biology ; environment constant?

— Some forms have stopped ! — Some never started ! — Differentiation plainer here than progress — Reason makes for progress in history — Is it all-sufficient? (Mill, Buckle) — Ancient civilisation failed — Morality and Christianity must safeguard modern civilisation

Chapter I Introductory

Science offers to supersede religion as guide to conduct — In form of theoretical sociology — Appealing to biology and evolution — Sociology distinguished from politics — From economics — From social philosophy — Akin to evolutionary ethics — Our point of view; morality taken for granted

When the French garrison left Rome in 1870, fears were openly expressed that anarchy would break out, but the Italian troops were promptly marched in, and all went quietly. Religion is supposed to be a retreating force in modern life, and many, even of those who are no friends to religion, suffer grave apprehensions as they look forward to a state of society emancipated from all religious restraint; but others tell us that science will find a remedy. Religion may go off duty, but science will take its place. Never was this conception more confidently advanced, or with more elaboration, than in the first founding of sociology under its present name.

We must clear the ground, however, by a distinction. It is theoretical sociology that we have in

2 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap.

view, — a coherent, deliberate body of doctrines, making, among other claims, the startling claim which we have noted above. Much that goes under the name of sociology is matter of quite a different kind. We may call it practical sociology, and we may describe it as a somewhat formless mass of good intentions. In detail it offers many valuable suggestions ; scientifically it is a thing of naught. If we were foolish enough to busy ourselves with it in this discussion we should be embarking on unknown waters, possibly upon a shoreless sea. We shall therefore take nothing to do with practical sociology. It is the science or alleged science of sociology that claims our attention.

One outstanding feature of this science is its connection with biology. In the early days of modern history, mathematics stood out in sharp and isolated relief as a well-finished and well-formulated science. Hence an impression got abroad that other sciences were to be perfected by treatment on mathematical lines. Spinoza's Ethics, with its array of definitions, postulates, and axioms, and with its pedantic series of syllogisms, is only the most celebrated and most notable among many similar attempts. In our time, biology seems to have cast a like spell upon the minds of not a few. It is biology nowadays which threatens to invade and annex every province of thought. Already in Auguste Comte, the founder or the godfather of sociology, biology counts for a great deal, and subsequent evolutionary speculation has enlarged its claims to infinity. If we achieve anything in this essay, it will probably be in the way of finding a definition (or a cluster of definitions) for

I INTRODUCTORY 3

the fascinating term " evolution," and in forming an estimate of the value which it, or which they, may possess as affording guidance to human conduct.

Let us further clear our thoughts before beginning our investigation by endeavouring to "place" sociology, provisionally, in relation to other kindred sciences.

In contrast with Politics, sociology deals with the informal or unintended 1 results of human association. In ancient days the line of division scarcely existed. The conception of a natural growth had never been applied to society. Speculation in early times was exceedingly sanguine, and counted upon refashioning society at its pleasure. We have learned from age-long experience that human nature is not so easily tamed or managed, even by those who try to manage it for its own good. We turn away incredulously from stories of a lawgiver who stamped his own personality and ideas upon many generations. Perhaps we go too far in our recoil from the ancient belief in the powers of the wise man. He may not always have been a myth ; his results might even be repeated. And yet, essentially, we are in the right. "All the world," as we say, is wiser than anybody in the world. To take a more definite example, the House of Commons is alleged to possess better taste than any one of its members. Our modern attitude is partly fatalism, but it is partly religious faith.

A second science may be thought of, which deals

1 Compare Mr. Mallock's definition of evolution as " the reasonable sequence of the unintended " {Aristocracy and Evolution, p. 97), quoted in our closing chapter.

4 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap.

with the objective and involuntary tendencies of social conduct — economics or political economy. This was on the ground before modern sociology, and Comte, who gave the latter science its name and claimed to be its author, regarded economics as a fragment of social science, wrongly studied in isolation from the rest, and therefore resulting in mistaken practical conclusions. In point of fact, one of the great difficulties or ambiguities of sociology arises no less plainly in economics. How make the transition from study of facts to maxims for conduct ? In other words, is political economy an art or a science ? The accepted view nowadays regards political economy as a science — the science of wealth ; and in spite of Comte' s protest, it is recognised as a distinct science, independent, in a sense, of sociology ; and that, mainly because more definite conclusions are possible in regard to wealth than in regard to the wider social interests of mankind. On the other hand, it is fully recognised that, if you wish to frame maxims for conduct, you have to take much into account besides the economic tendencies of action. And it is also confessed that in its " palmy days " political economy had identified itself with a system of individualism — with a hard doctrine of individual rights, more especially rights of property — which may well be thought a menace to the public interests. Nevertheless — such is the irony of circumstances! — practically the same system has reappeared in all its stringency in the form of Mr. Herbert Spencer's sociology.

Thirdly : Professor Mackenzie's Introduction to Social Philosophy adds another distinction — that of

1 INTRODUCTORY 5

social philosophy in contrast with social science. Sociology claims to rank as a science ; Mr. Mackenzie, who is entitled to respect, both on his own account and as representing generally the position of the great Hegelian or Idealist school, conceives that there are philosophical positions presupposed in social science which need separate discussion. In consequence or partly in consequence of this, Mr. Mackenzie's book does not aim at giving us a body of social doctrines, but at vindicating on philosophical grounds what he regards as wholesome social principles. The main significance of this, we think, is as follows, that, in contrast with the school which seeks to reduce social well-being to a problem in science, in analogy as far as may be to physical science and in close connection with it, there is another school, not less attached to a doctrine of corporate well or ill, which finds the highest authority in regard to human conduct in metaphysics.

Fourthly : We might speak of the relation of sociology to ethics. But here the floods threaten to break loose and drown us. Here we come face to face with the question already mentioned — the question of the transition from science to art; from noting how things happen to declaring how they ought to happen. Without enlarging further upon that topic at this stage in our discussion, we may at least call attention to the fact that historically there has been a very close kinship between sociology and ethics. Their problem is almost, if not altogether, the same ; the answer formulated is sometimes labelled "sociology," at other times "ethics," as on shipboard the jam is sometimes described as raspberry, some-

6 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap.

times as plum, sometimes, it may be, as guava, yet in all you taste the monotonous flavour of apple, or of burnt sugar. Not less alike to each other are evolutionary ethics and evolutionary sociology. Thus — to anticipate for a moment — sociology was originally formulated by Comte as the true guide to conduct, the new authority, destined to supersede both ethics and religion. — He modified this position in later days, as we shall see, but only within limits, and at the outset it was announced as we have given it. — Sociology offered to guide man with the help of biology ; society was an organism ; man was a member in the organism ; a part, not the whole ; essentially dependent on the whole, and bound to serve its interests. This conception reappears in Mr. Spencer ; he works out its suggestions in his own way, which is not Comte's ; but still he appeals to the analogy between society and an organism ; and he calls the discussion sociology. But when we turn to Mr. Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics, we meet with identically the same discussion. True, Mr. Stephen prefers the expression " social tissue " to the expression "social organism," but the difference is essentially one of detail, and does not affect the question before us. We are still working the biological analogy, yet, if you please, this is ethics we are working at. The brand, no doubt, is different ; the liquor is the same. Spencer has elsewhere and in different form his discussion of ethics ; Stephen's ethics run parallel, not to Spencer's ethics, but to Spencer's sociology. Again, Professor Alexander's Moral Order and Progress is, as the name implies, an .ethical discussion, yet the author finds it impossible to discuss the problems of per-