MORAL EVOLUTION 285 



to prey upon his fellows, and Natural Selection could not, in 

 all cases, act directly or speedily upon him, but only upon the 

 tribe or nation in whom there were many such individuals. 



Circumstances had arisen in which the citizen or tribesman The nation 

 might do a host of things most damaging to the community, but [^ivid^al 

 only mildly or not at all injurious to himself. There had arisen, apparent 

 in fact, a conflict between the interest of the community and what j^ff* 11 " 

 the individual might suppose to be his interest, and, unless through interests 

 some tendency or influence hitherto not in operation, the individual 

 came to identify his own personal welfare with that of his tribe or 

 nation, then society must die through its own corruption. 



This seeming conflict of interests was clearly seen by Mr Inter- 



Benjamin Kidd, and very clearly explained in his Social Evolution, " 

 published in 1894. But though the book was much read, it 

 was apparently, in spite of its clearness, but little understood. 

 The critics laid hold of unimportant defects and trifling side 

 issues, and missed the main argument. I quote a passage which 

 deals with all possible lucidity with the question at present under 

 discussion. " A religion is a form of belief, providing an ultra- 

 rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the individual 

 where his interests and the interests of the social organism are 

 antagonistic, and by which the former are rendered subordinate 

 to the latter in the general interests of the evolution which the 

 race is undergoing." * 



Religion, in fact, binds society together, fighting against the 

 disintegrating tendency to which we commonly give the name of 

 selfishness, and which enlists the services of reason to justify 

 itself. It is religion that has made it possible for the human 

 race to rise above the mere animal state, and made possible also 

 its advance to the highest levels it has attained. To the seeming 

 antagonism (it can be shown that there is no real antagonism) 

 between the interest of the individual and that of the community, 

 we must trace the evolution of good and evil. Man alone is 

 troubled with conflicting impulses what he considers his own 

 interest pulling him one way, his duty pulling him in the opposite 

 direction and it is this which has necessitated the existence of 



1 Social Evolution, p. 103. 



