The Theory of Evolution 47 



as It actually expressed itself in irresponsible 

 luxury based on revolting poverty, was ob- 

 viously akin to " Nature red in tooth and claw." 

 Opposed to this was the weak social instinct 

 and tradition which asserted the unity of the 

 race and the mutuality of society in the ethical 

 ideal of a God of love. Here, then, was 

 "Nature and God at strife" in English social 

 tendencies. Such a dualism was, however, a 

 fairly accurate representation in poetic terms 

 of the nature of society from its beginning, 

 for society consists of a harmonizing moral 

 force imposing itself upon an unmoral realm 

 of natural law — a divine principle subordi- 

 nating the world of the flesh, to borrow 

 theological terms. The dilemma of English 

 thought lay not in that it had felt this dualism, 

 but in that it had linked itself with Nature in- 

 stead of with God in the strife of which Tenny- 

 son speaks. In fact, its whole development 

 from the earliest modern awakening on through 

 Malthus and Darwin to Benjamin Kidd and 

 Karl Pearson was an exaltation of natural law 

 with its unmoral operation, and a consequent 

 implicit repudiation of the demands of the 

 higher social nature of man. Basing its rea- 

 soning on the natural and the animal, intellec- 



