120 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



point, the best man wins in the fierce competition of 

 war. The military virtues are correlated to other virtues, 

 or they are serviceable for other ends besides conquest. 

 Beyond a certain point, however, progress is not secured. 

 War tests and develops the military virtues, but it does 

 nothing to hinder the heavy weight of custom from 

 crushing out the finer possibilities of human nature. 

 On the contrary, as we know from Mr. Spencer, 

 militarism is the natural ally of autocracy and of 

 reaction ; it calls for a blind obedience. Therefore, to 

 end this paragraph as we began it, we are called on by 

 Bagehot to notice how very many civilisations have 

 become stagnant ; how very few have been the instances 

 of progress ; how many beginnings that promised well 

 have suffered a speedy arrest. In the same spirit 

 another distinguished writer, Sir Henry Maine, has 

 taught us that the barbarian inroads may have been 

 needed to save Europe from the fate of China. These 

 positions are memorable in view of what we shall hear 

 from Mr. Benjamin Kidd (speaking on the authority of 

 Professor Weismann) that for every organism the choice 

 lies between struggle, victory, and progress on the one 

 hand, and continuous retrogression on the other hand. 

 China has at least worn the appearance of stagnation 

 for many ages. China seems to have evaded Mr. Kidd's 

 dilemma. 



But, if war has a limited power of selection, and 

 effects a certain amount of progress, the decisive step 

 has been due twice over to the influence of free dis- 

 cussion in the sphere of government. The habit of 

 political debate in the Greek democracies, the same 

 habit afterwards as a tradition of the Teutonic peoples, 

 kindled and enflamed the mental activity of civilised 

 men, till discussion, like a forest fire, had spread to all 



