From Comte to Benjamin Kidd: The Appeal to Biology or Evolution for Human Guidance

by Robert Mackintosh

Overview

Robert Mackintosh (1858–1933), a professor at the Congregationalist Lancashire Independent College, traces the influence of biology and evolutionism on the study of human ethics and society during the second half of the nineteenth century in this 1899 book. He begins with Comte's founding of sociology, and continues with the renewed appeal to biology for the understanding of human affairs found in the work of Darwin, Spencer and their circle. He then looks at Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution, published in 1894 (and also reissued in this series). Fifty years after Comte, Kidd argued that sociology required further grounding by a new recourse to biology. Mackintosh supported Kidd's view. If biological clues are to afford guidance for human conduct, Mackintosh contended, they must be supplemented by a clearer moral and religious vision, and in philosophy by some scheme of metaphysical evolutionism. His work marks a transition from Darwinism to a new Hegelianism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108004534
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/24/2009
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Science and Religion
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction; Part I. Comtism, with Some Scattered Parallels: 2. Comte's life and the principles of his teaching; 3. The appeal to biology; 4. The appeal to history; 5. The doctrine of altruism; 6. Comte's law-giving; Part II. Simple Evolutionism—Spencer, Stephen: 7. Darwinian and Spencerian conceptions of evolution—Darwin; 8. Darwinian and Spencerian conceptions of evolution—Spencer; 9. Mr. Spencer's three doctrines of human welfare; 10. Mr. Leslie Stephen's 'Science of Ethics'; Part III. Darwinism, or Struggle for Existence: 11. 'Darwinism in Morals'—Miss Cobbe's protest; 12. Darwinism in politics—Bagehot; 13. Darwinism in ethics—Professor Alexander; 14. Reaction from Darwinism—Huxley; 15. Reaction from Darwinism—Drummond's 'Ascent of Man'; 16. Reiteration of Darwinism: elimination made absolute—Mr. A. Sutherland; 17. The metaphysics of natural selection; Part IV. Hyper-Darwinism—Weismann, Kidd: 18. 'Fairy Tale of Science'?; 19. Hyper-Darwinism in sociology: struggle made absolute—Mr. Kidd; 20. Summary and conclusions.