172 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART HI 



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. 



IT was no part of the plan of this book to undertake a 

 direct criticism of theories of evolution upon their 

 merits, whether from the point of view of biology or of 

 philosophy, of science or of metaphysics. If we now 

 find it necessary to undertake an estimate of the value 

 of Darwinism, we do so not merely because of the out- 

 standing importance of that theory, but because, in 

 summing up results, we are led to insist on a distinc- 

 tion. While we admit, and even (so far as we have any 

 right to speak) defend, the theory of natural selection in 

 biology, we affirm that it cannot be applied in sociology 

 or morals. Such a view seems to need justification. It 

 can only be supported by a review, however hurried and 

 imperfect, of the merits of Darwinism. 



The question may perhaps best be approached by a 

 discussion of the element of chance contained, or said to 

 be contained, in the Darwinian theory. Perhaps some 

 minds love Darwinism, because it appeals to chance; 

 others undoubtedly distrust and despise it for that 

 reason. What is chance ? Does Darwinism assert 

 chance, and, if so, in what sense ? How far is it war- 

 ranted in doing so ? 



I 



First and most simply, chance is the opposite of 

 purpose. It implies a failure of purpose where the 



