Page:The Story of Philosophy.pdf/468

 seeking the franchise. Spencer fears that the maternal instinct for helping the helpless may lead women to favor a paternalistic state. There is some confusion in his mind on this point; he argues that political rights are of no importance, and then that it is very important that women should not have them; he denounces war, and then contends that women should not vote because they do not risk their lives in battle —a shameful argument for any man to use who has been born of a woman's suffering. He is afraid of women because they may be too altruistic; and yet the culminating conception of his book is that industry and peace will develop altruism to the point where it will balance egoism and so evolve the spontaneous order of a philosophic anarchism.

The conflict of egoism and altruism (this word, and something of this line of thought, Spencer takes, more or less unconsciously, from Comte) results from the conflict of the individual with his family, his group, and his race. Presumably egoism will remain dominant; but perhaps that is desirable. If everybody thought more of the interests of others than of his own we should have a chaos of curtsies and retreats; and probably "the pursuit of individual happiness within the limits prescribed by social conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness." What we may expect, however, is a great enlargement of the sphere of sympathy, a great development of the impulses to altruism. Even now the sacrifices entailed by parentage are gladly made; "the wish for children among the childless, and the occasional adoption of children, show how needful for the attainment of certain egoistic satisfactions are these altruistic activities." The intensity of patriotism is another instance of the passionate preference of larger interests to one's immediate concerns. Every generation of social living deepens the impulses to mu-