254 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



That would imply that the world could gain nothing 

 from an intelligent sociologist unless he happened to 

 leave a son who was slightly more effective, socially, 

 than himself. The truth is, that genius is rarely or 

 never reproduced in offspring, while yet progress is 

 secured by the human, the rational methods. " The 

 sons " of the wise, as Old Testament language reminds 

 us, are other than his family after the flesh. Even in 

 dying, " he shall see his seed." Shakespeare is 

 Shakespeare, not to one generation merely, but to every 

 age. Newton survives in the senior wranglers of to-day, 

 who could expose so many of his errors, and tell him so 

 many things he never dreamed of. If Mr. Kidd's views 

 are solid, he has contributed directly to human evolution 

 by his very stimulating book ; a contribution quite 

 independent of "accumulation of congenital variations"; 

 while, if Mr. Kidd is wrong, one may hope to make 

 some small but direct contribution to human welfare by 

 exposing his fallacies. Really it is almost ludicrous to 

 spend so much time in beating in an open door ! Yet 

 the conclusion pointed to is one of great scope and 

 importance, if we consider it thoughtfully. Far from 

 being a mere accidental accretion upon the evolutionary 

 process, reason has transformed everything. Eeason is 

 not formal but constitutive. Reason is not simply a 

 calculating machine, but a principle, whose workings are 

 seen both in nature and in man, both in knowledge and 

 in conduct. It is not selfish, but moral behaviour that 

 deserves, and alone deserves, to be called rational. 



And, if our view of reason changes, our view of 

 religion must change with it. Religion is not the con- 

 tradiction but the fulfilment of reason. For reason is 

 immanent in all things. Every one of Mr. A. J. 

 Balfour's parallel pigeon-holes is a simple department 



