EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 145 



are born, and their ideas are favourable for progress, 

 and men are ripe for progress, then such men are the 

 leaders of men. 1 



The consideration of this conception of human 

 regeneration the regeneration of the " ego," is most 

 important. The conception of the perpetual present 

 produces an entirely new order of thought. When we 

 get this fundamental idea there is a clear trumpet-like 

 voice, ringing through all Nature, asking the individual, 

 " What are you doing to forward the happiness of your 

 fellow creatures, and' of your own prospective happi- 

 ness ? " Are you carrying out the fundamental ethical 

 law ; that is : are you doing unto others as you would 

 be done by, or are you doing your level best to over- 



telligence in individual cases ; there are many exceptions to the 

 general rule. 



" As regards man, very similar considerations hold good, viz. taken 

 in the rough, the brain- weight of distinguished men is above, while 

 that of idiots is below the average, and the brain- weight of civilised 

 men is above that of savages. Yet there are many individual ex- 

 ceptions to the general rule." (Idem, p. 521.) 



1 "To put it in the words used by Professor Flower in speaking of 

 human society, ' Progress has been due to the opportunity of those 

 individuals who are a little superior in some respects to their fellows, 

 of asserting their superiority and of continuing to live and of pro- 

 mulgating as an inheritance that superiority.' The recognition of 

 this law must be the first step towards any true science of society ; 

 and it is only right that we should find Professor Flower insisting, 

 although such a spectacle is somewhat unusual at present amongst 

 exponents of biological science, that it is 'the message which pure 

 and abstract biological research has sent to help us 011 with some of 

 the commonest problems of human life.' Where there is progress 

 there must inevitably be selection, and selection must in its turn 

 involve competition of some kind." (" Social Evolution," Benjamin 

 Kidd, 1895, p. 37.) 



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