CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 253 



conceivable that purposeful variations 1 occur spon- 

 taneously in each species, and are a direct source of 

 progress. 



When we leave biology for sociology and the sphere 

 of reason, the possibility spoken of becomes a certainty. 

 Reason tends to continuous advance ; and its achieve- 

 ments are inherited by means of human culture, with 

 its special agency, human or rational speech, passing into 

 higher and more powerful developments in the form of 

 writing and again of printing. This is recognised in 

 Mr. Leslie Stephen's view of society ; society is an 

 organic tissue, in virtue of the communion which exists 

 between its parts, through reason and through speech as 

 the embodiment of reason. The definition of civilisation 

 found in Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics, 

 viz. " the sum of those contrivances which enable 

 human beings to advance independently of [biological] 

 heredity," points us in the right direction. Mr. Kidd 

 has missed the obvious truth because he is too intent on 

 biology, and too hurried in his glance at human society 

 and human reason. " Biologists " may prove if they 

 can " the non-transmission to offspring of qualities 

 acquired during the lifetime of the parent." If biologists 

 make out their case, they prove that such qualities are 

 not transmitted biologically or organically. They 

 cannot possibly show that " the effects of use and 

 education " are not " transmitted by inheritance." 

 Every time a child goes to school, he is entering upon 

 such an inheritance. True, he may inherit little "at 

 birth." What of that ? Human progress cannot con- 

 ceivably be regulated by "the accumulation of congenital 

 variations above the average " and by nothing else. 



1 Not that we can claim Darwin's authority for this belief. 



