216 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



ALTHOUGH we have passed under review a reaction from 

 Darwinism, on moral grounds, or in the moral region, 

 yet the theory which in recent years has excited most 

 attention, both popular and scientific, is not a qualifica- 

 tion of the Darwinian doctrine of struggle, but an 

 intensified assertion of it. Weismann, like the young 

 Kehoboam, meets all discontent with a stiffer front and 

 a severer policy. "My father chastised you with 

 whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." Darwin 

 laid a terrible emphasis upon struggle for existence ; 

 but he admitted other causes of progress, such as sexual 

 selection and use -inheritance ; Weismann admits no 

 cause of progress whatsoever, except struggle for 

 existence ; no selection of the beautiful by the instinct 

 of sex, and above all, no inheritance of acquired 

 qualities. Such is Weismann's position ; a scientific 

 position in regard to technical questions of biology, 

 held by a competent and highly distinguished, though 

 also a highly speculative man of science. But the 

 position manifestly involves or suggests inferences re- 

 garding human progress : and these are worked out 

 with devout fidelity, and with much ability and 

 knowledge, by Mr. Benjamin Kidd. 



Primarily, the question between Darwin and Weis- 

 mann is one of fact. Does experience confirm or does 

 it refute belief in the inheritance of acquired qualities ? 

 Unfortunately, this question like many others is more 

 easily put than answered. Eomanes tells us (in the 

 preface to his Weismannism) that he himself, acting 

 under Darwin's immediate direction, instituted a long 

 series of experiments on the point ; but that the results 

 of these labours, which extended over several years, 

 were never published, because the experiments "all 

 failed," i.e. presumably, they yielded incurably ambi- 



