CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM DRUMMOND 147 



" altruism " by some biological considerations. We 

 shall speak more in detail of this presently. If it 

 should stand, would it not be another great stroke of 

 luck for Comte ? or, ought I to say, a further vindica- 

 tion of his prophetic insight ? He did not foresee the 

 evolutionary doctrine of the origin of species ; he even 

 deprecated such theorising. Yet the inquiry has gone 

 forward, and the doctrine has been promulgated, and has 

 set everybody using biological language. So too Comte 

 did not think of justifying 'his favourite virtue of 

 altruism by his favourite science of biology ; yet that 

 also has now been tried ; and if the views for which 

 Drummond is champion hold their ground, that also 

 will have been accomplished. One can only repeat once 

 more that it is extraordinary to find a Christian thinker 

 such as Drummond casting in his lot so unreservedly 

 with the programme of naturalistic science. 



It is from Darwin, however, that the new discussion 

 takes its departure. Its divergence from Darwinism is, 

 in its own opinion, its most important feature. Let us 

 look then for a moment at the peculiarities of Darwinism. 

 All living species have been marked off from each other, 

 and given a standing ground in nature, by the working 

 of natural selection upon minute and apparently casual 

 variations. The means of selection has been the cease- 

 less process of struggle for existence. At a certain 

 point in this evolutionary process we have foreshadow- 

 ings of morality when gregariousness appears, and when 

 social sympathies begin to claim a place in animal life. 

 Such limitation of the struggle for existence marks the 

 dawn of morality. Henceforth sociality has only to 

 develop its latent powers, and to call in the strong help 

 of intelligence, and we have morality full blown. How- 

 ever, the struggle for existence is not terminated ; it is 



