CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 247 



contrast to mere self-seeking. Only by such a discovery 

 is Drummond able to save morality. 



In assuming that biological law may be applied en 

 masse to human conditions, Mr. Kidd seems to re- 

 affirm the doctrine, that reason has no material influence 

 upon motive. Yet it turns out otherwise. He does 

 believe that the animal nature of man is affected by 

 reason, viz. for the worse ! Conscious of what he is 

 doing, man objects to sacrifice himself to his family or 

 his tribe ; instinct might have led the ape to make the 

 sacrifice automatically. Eeason thus tends to make 

 man purely selfish ; and sometimes the tendency has 

 its full effect. After all, selfishness is the only reason- 

 able behaviour. If indeed reason can be controlled, 

 it promises great social advance through the superior 

 cleverness which it imparts ; but in itself it is a purely 

 anarchical force. De Maistre or Newman could not 

 have spoken more severely of it. 



Let us recall here what we have learned from other 

 evolutionists regarding the advent of reason. It has 

 arrested the evolution of the body (Drummond, etc.). 

 It has wrapped mankind round in a mantle of law, 

 custom, and institution, capable of intellectual not 

 physical inheritance (e.g. Mr. L. Stephen). It has 

 largely substituted imitation or conversion for rivalry to 

 the death (Bagehot). And now Mr. Kidd tells us that 

 reason abruptly closes so far as its influence extends 

 the process of upward social evolution. Does not all 

 this support the conclusion that reason is something 

 quite different from a mere colourless medium or 

 calculating machine ? One fully agrees with Mr. Kidd 

 that reason checks the automatic working of instinct. 

 Where reason appears, systematic selfishness and sin 

 become possible as they never were before. But 



