n, it is
ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is no more than the old
doctrine taught long ago by the Hebrew prophets. The theories of M.
Comte and his disciples advance us, after all, not a step beyond the
trodden and familiar ground. If men are not entirely animals, they are
at least half animals, and are subject in this aspect of them to the
conditions of animals. So far as those parts of man's doings are
concerned, which neither have, nor need have, any thing moral about
them, so far the laws of him are calculable. There are laws for his
digestion, and laws of the means by which his digestive organs are
supplied with matter. But pass beyond them, and where are we? In a world
where it would be as easy to calculate men's actions by laws like those
of positive philosophy as to measure the orbit of Neptune with a foot
rule, or weigh Sirius in a grocer's scale.

And it is not difficult to see why this should be. The first principle,
on which the theory of a science of history can be plausibly argued, is
that all actions whatsoever arise from self-interest. It may be
enlightened self-interest, it may be unenlightened; but it is assumed as
an axiom, that every man, in whatever he does, is aiming at something
which he considers will promote his happiness. His conduct is not
determined by his will; it is determined by the object of his desire.
Adam Smith, in laying the foundations of political economy, expressly
eliminates every other motive. He does not say that men never act on
other motives; still less, that they never ought to act on other
motives. He asserts merely that, as far as the arts of production are
concerned, and of buying and selling, the action of self-interest may
be counted upon as uniform. What Adam Smith says of political economy,
Mr. Buckle would extend over the whole circle of human activity.

Now, that which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low
order of man--that which constitutes human goodness, human greatness,
human nobleness--is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which
men pursue their own advantage: but it is self-forgetfulness, it is
self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal
indulgence, personal advantages remote or present, because some other
line of conduct is more right.

We are sometimes told that this is but another way of expressing the
same thing; that, when a man prefers doing what is right, it is only
because to do right