42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



opposed to the natural and egoistic actions, affirming the will to 

 life, are certain actions which show a diametrically opposed striv- 

 ing. The only explanation of these actions is that the actor 

 always sacrifices in them, to a certain extent, his own individual 

 and limited existence by expanding his ego beyond the bounds 

 of his individuality, recognizing his own self in others/' "In 

 investigating the action of man, which is, in general, an expres- 

 sion of the affirmation of the will to life, we meet a series of 

 actions which are, in the natural order of things, inconceivable, 

 being diametrically opposed to this world and its laws, contra- 

 dicting these in every sense, and, as it were, totally unhinging 

 them. These phenomena are the deeds of a genuine morality." 

 " Thus the totality of human action appears as the expression of 

 two opposed currents one, egoistic, affirming, mundane ; the 

 other, ascetic, denying (i. e., self-denying), supramundane." " "We 

 may denote faith as that which has as its inevitable result moral- 

 ity." It is impossible for any one who has read these passages 

 and many similar ones to be much startled when he is informed 

 by Mr. Kidd that "throughout its existence (viz., of the social 

 organism) there is maintained within it a conflict of two oppos- 

 ing forces : the disintegrating principle represented by the ra- 

 tional self-assertiveness of the individual units; the integrating 

 principle represented by a religious belief, providing a sanction 

 for social conduct, which is always necessarily ultra-rational." 



The fact is that the conception of religion as an influence con- 

 straining men to identify their own good with that of the com- 

 munity apart from all calculations of selfish interest is one very 

 generally entertained in the present day, and not less, certainly, 

 by men of science than by others. It lies at the basis of Feuer- 

 bach's remarkable book on The Essence of Christianity. It is 

 clearly expressed in one or two of the late Prof. Clifford's essays ; 

 it can be traced in the writings of the late Prof. Tyndall and of 

 Prof. Huxley ; probably it would be difficult to discover an intel- 

 lectual region of any note in which it is not more or less distinctly 

 accepted. 



But, says Mr. Kidd, " Science from an early stage in her career 

 has been engaged in a personal quarrel " with successive religious 

 systems. The quarrel " has developed into a bitter feud." Yet, 

 instead of investigating this historic antagonism in a scientific 

 spirit, and asking " whether it was not connected with some deep- 

 seated law of social development," Science " seems to have taken 

 up, and to have maintained, down to the present time, the ex- 

 traordinary position that her only concern with them is to de- 

 clare that they are without any foundation in reason." Now this 

 seems to us, to speak plainly, not only an incorrect but a very 

 nonsensical statement. Science has only antagonized religion in 



