Social Evolution 325 



made by the progenitors of the guinea-pig in the 

 same time. 



Moreover, in speaking of the rise that has come 

 through the stress of competition in our modern so- 

 cieties, and of the keenness of this stress in the 

 societies that have gone fastest, Mr. Kidd overlooks 

 certain very curious features in human society. In 

 the first place, he speaks as though the stress under 

 which nations make progress was primarily the stress 

 produced by multiplication beyond the limits of sub- 

 sistence. This, of course, would mean that in pro- 

 gressive societies the number of births and the num- 

 ber of deaths would both be at a maximum, for it 

 is where the births and deaths are largest that the 

 struggle for life is keenest. If, as Mr. Kidd's hy- 

 pothesis assumes, progress was most marked where 

 the struggle for life was keenest, the European peo- 

 ples standing highest in the scale would be the South 

 Italians, the Polish Jews, and the people who live in 

 the congested districts of Ireland. As a matter of 

 fact, however, these are precisely the peoples who 

 have made least progress when compared with the 

 dominant strains among, for instance, the English 

 or Germans. So far is Mr. Kidd's proposition from 

 being true that, when studied in the light of the 

 facts, it is difficult to refrain from calling it the re- 

 verse of the truth. The race existing under condi- 

 tions which make the competition for bare existence 

 keenest, never progresses as fast as the race which 

 exists under less stringent conditions. There must 

 undoubtedly be a certain amount of competition, a 



