Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/621

No. 6.] exist only as distinguished from each other. The view which makes egoism prior to, and more imperative than, altruism is a view which identifies egoism with the fundamental physiological functions—with the simplest and most elementary of our activities; and which identifies altruism with the more complex and representative acts—with the building of hospitals or the good government of a nation. We find here, then, once more a particular content given for the ethical deed.

Again, in separating off two sorts of moral code—the code of 'enmity' and the code of 'amity'—Spencer fails to recognize the organic connection between the competitive and the cooperative forces at work in society in all its stages. The codes of 'amity' and 'enmity' are not different types of moral injunctions, the one intrinsically good and the other merely imperfect and expedient; but each represents a different stage in the same process of social evolution. Warfare among savage peoples and industrial competition in a civilized community both stand for the same selective method by which society secures for itself the survival of its best and fittest members. We have seen that the moral situation, according to the 'psychological view,' always involves the struggle or competition of impulses; and it is equally true that, in this case, there can be no conscious social coöperation without constantly recurring competition. Coöperation without competition and antagonism is conscious life without selective attention. A society in which the code of 'amity' prevailed, in which there was no tension, would be a perfectly static and unprogressive community.

Spencer's general position on the relation of the individual to society is stated in the following extract, concerning the ultimate end of associated life. "Living together arose because, on the average, it proved more advantageous to each than living apart, ... Hence, social self-preservation becomes a proximate aim taking a precedence of the ultimate aim, individual self-preservation. This subordination of personal to social welfare is, however, contingent—all along, furtherance of individual lives has been the ultimate end; and if this ultimate end has been postponed to the proximate end of preserving the community's life,