NA TURE 



549 



THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1S94. 



THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION. 

 Social Evolution. By Benjamin Kidd. (London ; 

 Macmillan and Co., 1894.) 



THLS is a very remarkable book ; and one which 

 must have a good effect in preparing students of 

 sociology for the inevitable changes which are rapidly 

 coming upon us. It is thoroughly scientific in its 

 methods, inasmuch as it is based upon the theory of 

 evolution ; yet it is altogether original in its treatment 

 of the subject, and gives us a theory of social progress 

 which is in many respects very different from that gene- 

 rally accepted by evolutionists. This theory appears on 

 the whole to be a sound one, although the author has 

 fallen into certain errors which will be pointed out. 

 These, however, do not materially affect the general 

 theory. 



In his first chapter, " The Outlook," the author gives 

 a sketch of the progress of opinion during the present 

 century, showing that the old political parties, whose 

 wa'chwords are almost confined to the completion of 

 the programme of political equality, find that the world 

 is rapidly moving beyond them. As he well puts it : — 



" One of the most striking affd significant signs of the 

 times is the spectacle of Demos, with these new battle- 

 cries ringing in his ears, gradually emerging from the 

 long silence of social and political serfdom. Not now 

 does he come with the violence of revolution foredoomed 

 to failure, but with the slow majestic progress which 

 marks a natural evolution. He is no longer unwashed 

 and illiterate, for we have universal education. He is no 

 longer muzzled and without political power, for we have 

 universal suffrage. With his advent socialism has ceased 

 to be a philanthropic sentiment merely. . . . The advent 

 of Demos is the natural result of a long series of con- 

 cessions, beginning in England with the passing of the 

 Factory Acts, and the legislation of combination, and 

 leading gradually up to the avowedly socialistic legis- 

 lation for which the times appear to be ripening." 



A forcible sketch is given of the growing power of 

 capitalism on the one side, and of socialism on the other ; 

 and then we come to what forms the keynote of the work, 

 in the declaration that religion is not, as the scientific 

 urge, a mere system of superstition and error, a clog on 

 the wheels of progress, the enemy of science and en- 

 lightenment, and, as Grant Allen has described it, a mere 

 "grotesque fungoid growth " ; but, on the contrary, that 

 it has been one of the most important agencies in social 

 development, and is closely bound up with that portion of 

 our nature to which all recent social advance is due, and 

 which will inevitably decide the course of our future pro- 

 gress. Of course this has nothing to do with dogmatic 

 religion, but only with those great ethical principles 

 which have always formed part of religious teaching, and 

 whose influence is in great part due to it. 



The conditions of human progress form the subject 

 of the next chapter, and it is laid down that no progress 

 is possible without some form of selection. 



" It may appear strange, but it is strictly true, that if 

 each of us were allowed by the conditions of life to follow 

 his own inclinations, the average of one generation would 



NO. 1276, VOL 49] 



have no tendency whatever to rise beyond the average of 

 the preceding one." 



But the author goes further than this. He fully accepts 

 Weismann's view of the non-inheritance of acquired 

 characters, and is under the mistaken impression that 

 the theory oi panmi.xia leads to continuous and unlimited 

 degeneration. Many writers have pointed out that this 

 is an error. The amount of the degeneration thus pro- 

 duced would be limited to that of the average of those 

 born during the preceding generations in place of the 

 average of those that had survived. As Prof. Lloyd 

 Morgan puts it, the survival-mean would fall back to the 

 birth-mean. This error is of especial importance because 

 it is used as an argument against the possibility of any 

 form of socialism which removes the individual struggle 

 for existence. 



The chapter which follows bears the startling head- 

 ing — " There is no Rational Sanction for the Conditions of 

 Progress " ; by which is meant that at any moment the 

 great bulk of the people have no interest in preserving 

 the conditions that are essential to it, but rather, in 

 altering them. The author urges that, in our existing 

 societies, where we base on the fabric of political 

 equality the most obvious social and material inequality, 

 the lower classes of our population have no sanction 

 from their reason for Inaintaining existing conditions. 

 In a question of this kind reason has nothing to do with 

 any existence but the present, which, it insists, it is our 

 duty to ourselves to make the most of. 



" The prevailmg conditions of existence can, therefore, 

 have no such sanction for large masses of the people in 

 societies where life is a long onerous rivalry, where in 

 the nature of things it is impossible for all to attain to 

 success, and where the many work and suffer and only 

 the {t.\< have leisure and ease. Regard it how we may, 

 the conclusion seems inevitable, that, to the great masses 

 of the people, the so-called lower classes, in the advanced 

 civilisations of to-day, the conditions under which they 

 live and work are still without any rational sanction." 



We now come to the question of the causes of the 

 evolution of society and of modern civilisation, which are 

 found, not in the growth of intellect and of science, but 

 in the continuous action of religious beliefs. The argu- 

 ment by which this conclusion is reached is ingenious, 

 elaborate, and I think quite sound, but is difficult to 

 condense. Societies and civilisations have prevailed in 

 the struggle for existence in proportion as they have 

 been efficiently organised, and this organisation has 

 always rested on some form of religious sanction. The 

 doctrines of caste, of class, of the divine right of kings, 

 of subjection to popes and bishops, have been powerful 

 in welding together tribes and peoples, have checked the 

 supremacy of brute force, and have been the most 

 efficient agency in that subordination of the many to the 

 few which was essential to the production and accumula- 

 tion of wealth, to the growth of the arts, and to the firm 

 establishment of that national unity which is the most 

 important factor in the growth of civilisation. 



This was its function in the early development 

 of European civilisation, but during the last two 

 or three centuries its influence has been exerted 

 in a different manner, which has had even more 

 important results. As nations became more advanced 



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