xx COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



wrong way) Religious celibacy (ib.) Summary Sociologically 

 Mr. Kidd's insistence on struggle is really biological ; is unproved ; 

 is not an insistence on natural selection Ethically Mr. Alexander's 

 competition of " Ideals " is exaggerated And itself implies reason 

 and sympathy Mr. Sutherland's elimination of evil doers ignores 

 positive causes of moral progress Exemplified typically in Jesus 

 Christ. 



VI. If natural selection does not operate where reason and conscience 

 exist, it yet may originate them in the loose and incorrect sense in 

 which natural selection is said to originate things ! If reason, etc., 

 were, as most suppose, evolved and selected How selected ? Have 

 adjacent races died out ? 



VII. Other idealist views Professor Ritchie praises natural selection 

 more fully, in vague terms and in some passages Mr. Sandeman 

 rejects it, because he believes in the teleological perfection of every 

 organism But is it possible to get over the impression produced by 

 rudimentary organs ? It is enough if the whole of nature is good, 

 and its parts relatively fit Dr. Stirling believes the casual variation 

 which makes an individual can never make a type Is it certain 

 that every individual is born differentiated ? Or that any differences 

 are incapable of growing by cumulation into a type ? Possible value 

 of the hypothesis of natural selection, even if a fiction. 



PART IV 

 HYPER-DARWINISM WEISMANN, KIDD 



CHAPTER XVIII 



A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 



An intenser assertion of struggle Not on ground of experiment ; evidence 

 is ambiguous On ground of a theory of heredity Darwin's theory 

 (Pangenesis) assumed derivation of embryonic qualities from qualities 

 and tissues of parental organism Use-inheritance possible or prob- 

 able on this view But "Atavism" forced the concession, some 

 " gemmules " had passed on undeveloped from earlier generations till 

 they found their chance Gallon's figures for resemblance to ancestors 

 Hence theories asserting " continuity of the germ plasm " Parable 

 of the hierarchy Galton (" Stirp ") does not absolutely deny the 



