CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 243 



What then are the conditions of human progress 

 as formulated by Mr. Kidd? Primarily they are 

 physiological. Let men fight the battle of life ; they 

 will advance. Easy circumstances, enjoyed in an easy 

 spirit, imply arrest, and perhaps arrest implies retro- 

 gression. But the wholesome biological tendency to 

 struggle, and struggle on, is interfered with by man's 

 gift of reason. The instincts of race keep the beasts 

 in the path of progress, e.g. by struggling in the 

 interests of their offspring. But many human beings 

 e.g. the school of Mrs. Mona Caird resent these 

 struggles as an impertinence and an absurdity. So 

 far, Mr. Kidd agrees with them. It is irrational to 

 acquiesce ! Keason makes us conscious of self ; selfish- 

 ness therefore and selfishness alone is rational behaviour. 

 But rational behaviour, in this sense of the word, leads 

 straight to retrogression. Now, natural selection would 

 have its slow remedy for this. If the human race had 

 entered the cul-de-sac of selfishness, natural selection 

 would calmly have waited till a rational race endowed 

 with higher tendencies "happened" to be evolved; where- 

 upon humanity would quickly have been extinguished 

 in competition with the new race. But, fortunately 

 for the prospects of mankind, such an evolution has 

 already "happened." Mankind is a race fitted to 

 survive. Or rather Mr. Kidd does not write on this 

 point like an ultra - Darwinian, giving the largest 

 possible play to chance, but like one who has a 

 belief in the purposefulness of organic life the 

 biological laws of human society supply a counterpoise 

 to the dangers introduced by reason. We have reason 

 to make us selfish ; but we have religion to make and 

 keep us altruistic, in despite of our reason. All religions 

 are preter-rational and altruistic, Christianity the most 



