33 Social Evolution 



so working. When humanity has reached a certain 

 stage it will cause the individual more pain, a greater 

 sense of degradation and shame and misery, to steal, 

 to murder, or to lie, than to work hard and suffer 

 discomfort. When man has reached this stage he 

 has a very rational sanction for being truthful and 

 honest. It might also parenthetically be stated that 

 when he has reached this stage he has a tendency to 

 relieve the sufferings of others, and he has for this 

 course the excellent rational sanction that it makes 

 him more uncomfortable to see misery unrelieved 

 than it does to deny himself a little in order to re- 

 lieve it. 



However, we can cordially agree with Mr. Kidd's 

 proposition that many of the social plans advanced 

 by would-be reformers in the interest of oppressed 

 individuals are entirely destructive of all growth 

 and of all progress in society. Certain cults, not 

 only Christian, but also Buddhistic and Brahminic, 

 tend to develop an altruism which is as "supra-nat- 

 ural" as Mr. Kidd seemingly desires religion to be ; 

 for it really is without foundation in reason, and 

 therefore to be condemned. 



Mr. Kidd repeats again and again that the sci- 

 entific development of the nineteenth century con- 

 fronts us with the fact that the interests of the social 

 organism and of the individual are, and must remain, 

 antagonistic, and the latter predominant, and that 

 there can never be found any sanction in individual 

 reason for individual good conduct in societies where 

 the conditions of progress prevail. From what has 



