SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY 381 



evolution, although they otherwise proved fascinating and 

 stimulating, have undoubtedly (at least in some quarters) given 

 rise to a pessimistic view of life. 



As regards Darwinism, I will quote Mr. C. B. Roylance 

 Kent on the extent to which it has induced a fatalistic and 

 politically baneful view to prevail. (" Evolution in Human 

 Society," Fortnightly Review, June, 1913.) 



It is hardly questionable, indeed, that the general acceptance of 

 Darwinism has induced a view of life, an outlook on affairs, a stand- 

 point, which are novel. There has arisen a sort of anti-humanitarian, 

 even a fatalistic, way of regarding the destiny of man. Physical 

 science, it is believed, has given its verdict in favour of violence and 

 brute force ; it is idle therefore, so it is argued, to endeavour to promote 

 the finer feelings. Gentleness, humility, the sense of justice are, from 

 this point of view, not so much virtues as symptoms of weakness and 

 degeneracy. Natural selection, it is asserted, will go its passionless 

 way, and, whether we wish it or not, the stronger will survive. Blessed 

 are the strong, for they shall destroy the weak. That the race is only 

 to the swift and the battle to the strong ; that man's life and actions 

 are ruled by inexorable laws which it is futile to endeavour to resist 

 this is the kind of mental attitude which the acceptance of Darwinism 

 has caused very widely to prevail. The holding of such a creed cannot 

 be without its influence upon conduct. Nor do the consequences end 

 here. For the theory has penetrated into the region of high politics. 

 It is, for instance, not too much to say that it has gone far to make 

 popular a conception of the State which Bismarck, not altogether unsuc- 

 cessfully, tried to realise. Man, it is now fashionable to hold, exists ; 

 for the State, and not the State for the man. And so the individual 

 withers and the State is more and more. In the competitive struggle 

 between nations, safety it is asserted, can be secured only by realising 

 this ideal. Now, it is precisely from this doctrine that the demand for 

 extending the sphere of government interference and regulation is imme- 

 diately derived ; and from it, too, springs the conception of a nation 

 as a self-contained unit as "a moral, organised, masculine person- 

 ality," to use the phrase of a German political philosopher. 



I am in full agreement with Mr. Roylance Kent, and it is 

 my firm belief (based on experience) that the Darwinian 

 teaching has had some share in bringing about the present 

 plight of Europe. Although apologists may say that Darwin 

 himself held that human society had long abrogated Natural 



