210 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



In speaking as if it did, Darwin ignores a co-operating 

 factor of even greater consequence, the capacity for 

 aggregate variation in the material. Moreover, selection 

 out of non-telic elements seems possible, if at all, only 

 in the lower ranges of evolution, where fecundity is 

 greatest. Yet it may be held that reason emerges by 

 means of the process called natural selection, and by 

 means of a process in which natural selection, i.e. 

 struggle and elimination, have certainly played some 

 considerable part. On the assumption of evolution all 

 along the line, it is implied that [what is on the surface] 

 a natural process has led up to the spiritual forces of 

 morality and reason. Being a natural process, it has 

 never wholly shaken off the influence of elimination. 



Of course, if Mr. Wallace is right, that there was a 

 special supernatural intervention when reason appeared 

 upon earth, it will not do to say even in the most 

 guarded sense that natural selection created reason. 

 But this quasi "miracle" is doubtful. Mr. Wallace 

 himself has laid the greatest stress upon the preserva- 

 tion of reason by natural selection. We prefer his 

 teaching on that point, with all its difficulties. Why 

 (for example) have the irrational races not died out ? Can 

 we hold that the race nearest man, yet irrational, died 

 out in competition with him ? Perhaps that is why it 

 is so hard to find traces of the missing link. Presum- 

 ably competition is always keenest between adjacent 

 forms. Consequently, defeated species may disappear 

 outright, and their disappearance may explain that 

 semblance of a gap between the nearest existing species 

 which is so noticeable in many parts of nature. I do 

 not know whether this suggestion has been made before. 

 If not, it may be offered for what it is worth to those 

 who are interested in defending natural selection. 



