CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 241 



therefore your posterity will soon be extinguished." 

 Suppose the socialist to reply, " What on earth do I 

 care about posterity ? I mean to have an easy time of 

 it myself ! " Then certainly your remonstrance has 

 missed fire. 



Another consequence of some importance for socio- 

 logical science attaches to this second great loan of 

 Mr. Kidd's from Weismann. The old Comtist and 

 post-Comtist division into statics and dynamics con- 

 ditions of order l and conditions of progress falls to the 

 ground. Mr. Kidd discusses the "conditions of pro- 

 gress," and these only. The formula seems to be, 

 " Take care of progress, and stability will take care of 

 itself" ; a formula which follows directly from Weis- 

 mann's dilemma advance or downright retrogression 

 and yet once more so startling a position that once more 

 it seems Mr. Kidd ought to have been arrested, as 

 by a large type note of interrogation or by a danger 

 signal, and ought to have inquired whether something 

 had not been ignored when biology was transferred 

 wholesale to the life and history of man. The young 

 lions of the Radical party will welcome Mr. Kidd's 

 formula with delight ; but one would rather hear what 

 the old lions have to say to it. 



Yet another consequence may be noted ; evolution, 

 with Weismann and Mr. Kidd, is almost though not 

 altogether equivalent to progress. It is progress where- 

 ever it is not downright retrogression. Stagnation is 

 impossible, panmixia and retrogression are rare. No 

 doubt panmixia will yield continuous evolutionary 

 change while it lasts ; but panmixia is essentially a 

 limited phenomenon ; it is an exception to the general 



1 Comte's Statics, however, as he states them are rather abstract con- 

 ditions of social well-being than conditions of social order. 



R 



