206 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



that we should get better results by " following 

 nature " in a more brutal fashion. 



In sociology Mr. Benjamin Kidd has claimed that 

 all our salvation lies in natural selection, failing which 

 "panmixia" entails retrogression. This is really bio- 

 logical rather than sociological doctrine, and probably 

 or certainly it is bad biology. There is little or no true 

 struggle for existence among human beings ; thank God 

 for that ! Reason and our moral nature make it im- 

 possible ; and yet we seem to have escaped retrogression. 

 Mr. Kidd dwells on the necessity of struggle, while he 

 says nothing about elimination ; and he applies his 

 supposed biological truths directly to the human animal. 

 Reason is held to affect the process chiefly in a danger- 

 ous way. It makes men clever, no doubt, but it makes 

 them too selfish to struggle in the interests of the species, 

 unless religion had come in to keep us up to the mark. 

 Social evolution therefore depends on (what is called) 

 natural selection, minus reason, but plus religion. So 

 Mr. Kidd tells us. 



We should say that it depends upon reason plus 

 morality plus religion. And since it depends on reason, 

 it depends on those who have reason most fully, and 

 yet are brothers to those who have least of it ; in other 

 words, social progress depends upon great men. We 

 lesser men stand on their shoulders; as reasonable 

 beings, we share in their discoveries. On their side 

 they are not independent of us, the little men. Even 

 the ruthless Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have made 

 that confession. " Why," he asked of David, " have 

 you put those tiny troops and guns into the corner of 

 my portrait? I ought to be alone." The embarrassed 

 painter apologised as best he could. He thought that 



