90 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



one time. 1 " Species " is but a class term and a species can 

 survive only through the survival of individuals. In a dynamic 

 environment a species cannot persist without modification and if 

 changes in the type occur there is no special advantage in keeping 

 the same name. In the above illustration from Weismann, if 

 brevity of life in the individual is advantageous to the species in 

 its present struggle, it is advantageous to the individuals com- 

 posing the species, for if nature did not terminate life when the 

 individual had ceased to be of service to the group, the group as 

 such would have to make way with it, that is, if the struggle for 

 existence were sufficiently acute, even as happens in some 

 species. The same thing holds true of man. Among some 

 primitive tribes the aged are cast off to die. It would be of 

 advantage to the individuals under such conditions if there were 

 an inner principle which would bring life to an end as soon as 

 such social disutility occurred as to lead to their destruction by 

 the group. 



This theory of projected efficiency, calling for the sacrifice of 

 the vast majority of living individuals to the good of unborn 

 generations, gives Kidd the background for his emphasis on the 

 need of a super-rational sanction which will hold the members of a 

 group to their thankless but inevitable task. 



Reason, which in his conception is the cold calculating faculty 

 that enables one to balance pleasures and pains and choose con- 

 duct in the line of self-interest cannot furnish a sanction, for if 

 allowed full sway it would lead to the establishment of some kind 

 of socialistic or anarchistic scheme which would mean present 

 gain though future disaster to the race. 2 Reason is considered 

 to be diametrically opposed to " belief " and " ultra-rational." 

 There can be no such thing, according to our author, as a reason- 

 able religion. 3 Religion is not only super-rational but irrational. 



Mr. Kidd's chief contributions to the development of the 

 doctrine of adaptation are (i) emphasis on the development by 

 inter-group conflict of the social and moral qualities which make 



1 His illustrations from social evolution, Social Evolution, chs. VI and VII, have 

 no biological analogue. 



2 Ibid., pp. 67 ff. 3 Ibid., pp. 107 f. 



