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NA TURE 



[April 12, 1894 



in education and the arts, and a considerable middle 

 class arose whose interests were opposed to those 

 of the warrior caste and to constant war and bloodshed, 

 the ethical side of all religious teaching began to have 

 more influence, and ideas of justice and mercy, and of the 

 inherent rights of man independent of class or caste, 

 obtained for the first time some real effect throughout all 

 ranks of society. Hence arose that gradual amelioration 

 in our punishments, that recognition of human rights in 

 even the lowest classes, that love of equal justice for all 

 men, which has, little by little, permeated all civilised 

 nations ; and which has culminated during the present 

 century in the abolition of slavery and of class and reli- 

 gious privileges ; in general education, and in the grant of 

 almost universal suffrage. This long process of social 

 evolution is thus briefly summarised by our author : — 



" Throughout the history of the Western peoples there 

 is one central fact which underlies all the shifting scenes 

 which move across the pages of the historian. The 

 political history of the centuries so far may be summed 

 up in a single sentence : it is the story of the political and 

 social enfranchisement of the masses of the people 

 hitherto universally excluded from participation in the 

 rivalry of existence on terms of equality. This change, 

 it is seen, is being accomplished against the most pro- 

 longed and determined resistance at many points and 

 under innumerable forms, of the power-holding classes 

 which obtained under an earlier constitution of society 

 the influence which they have hitherto, to a large extent, 

 although in gradually diminishing measure, continued to 

 enjoy. The point at which the process tends to culminate 

 is a condition of society in which the whole mass of the 

 excluded people will be at last brought into the rivalry of 

 existence on a footing of equality of opportunity." 



He points out the immense significance of this pro- 

 cess of development, which is absolutely unique in the 

 history of the race ; and that its whole tendency is, 

 not to suspend the rivalry of life, but to raise 

 it to the highest possible degree of efficiency as a 

 cause of progress. This progress towards equalisation of 

 the conditions of life is in no sense due to an intellectual 

 movement. From the point of view of the power-holding 

 classes the conception of the native equality of men is 

 essentially irrational, besides being wholly opposed to 

 what they have always conceived to be their interests. 

 As classes they have always opposed any concessions to 

 the masses as being destructive of society, and had not 

 the softening of character due to ethical teaching and 

 impulse permeated their own organisation, thus taking 

 heart and unanimity out of their opposition, each suc- 

 cessive concession would never have been made. The 

 whole movement is therefore due to the all-pervading 

 influence in our civilisation of that ever-growing fund of 

 altruism, that development of humanitarian feelings, that 

 deepening sense of justice, which, in the author's opinion, 

 is '■ the direct and peculiar product of the religious 

 system on which our civilisation is founded." 



There is one difficulty here with which the author fails 

 to grapple. His fundamental doctrine is that all human 

 progress is due to selection in the struggle for existence, 

 whether that struggle acts most severely upon individuals 

 or upon communities. But it is not shown hoiv the rude 

 struggles of the two thousand years terminating in the 

 sixteenth century could have had any tendency to in- 

 NO. J 276, VOL. 49] 



crease and develop these altruistic and ethical sentiments. 

 During the ages when might was right, when violence, 

 cruelty, and rapine held sway over Europe, how were the 

 mild, the true, the humane and the just so constantly 

 preserved in the struggle, as to steadily increase and 

 ultimately permeate all society as they do now? It is 

 pointed out that neither in Greece nor in Rome, at the 

 period of their greatest intellectual splendour, was there 

 any such development of these altruistic and higher 

 ethical sentiments. The mere teaching oi their principles 

 could not have created the sentiments themselves with- 

 out selection, and selection in this case seen.s al- 

 together absent. The natural possessors of such 

 sentiments were usually buried in religious houses, and, 

 as a rule, left no descendants. All selection seems 

 rather to have tended to the extermination of the pos- 

 sessors of humane and altruistic sentiments, not to their 

 continuous preservation and increase. Yet nothing is 

 more certain than that they do now prevail to an extent 

 never before known, and if they have not been developed 

 by selection they must have been inherent in the race, 

 developed perhaps at some earlier period, and have lain 

 dormant till a more peaceful and more intellectual epoch 

 called for their manifestation. 



Though not a socialist, Mr. Kidd goes so far that, 

 by the upholders of the present system, he will be 

 thought hardly less dangerous an innovator. The whole 

 drift and burthen of his work is, that we are inevitably 

 moving towards a system of society in which, not only 

 will all men be politically equal, but all will exist under 

 conditions of equal social opportunities. Again and 

 again he recurs to this point. He speaks of "the move- 

 ment which is tending to ultimately bring all the people 

 into the rivalry of life on conditions of equality." He 

 recognises that this means that the position of the lower 

 classes will be raised " at the expense of the wealthier 

 classes," and that this is " a conditio sine qua non of any 

 measure that carries us a step forward in our social 

 development." And again, in his concluding chapter, 

 he thus speaks of this inevitable social movement :— 



"The practical consequence is of great significance. It 

 is, that the development in which the excluded masses of 

 the people are being brought into the competition of life 

 on a footing of equality of opportunity is proceeding, and 

 will apparently continue to proceed in Great Britain, not 

 by the violent stages of revolution, but as a gradual and 

 orderly process of social change. The power-holding 

 classes are in retreat before the people ; but the retreat 

 on the one side is orderly and unbroken, while the ad- 

 vance on the other is the steady, unhastening, onward 

 movement of a party conscious of the strength and recti- 

 tude of its cause, and in no doubt as to the final issue." 



Although thus clear as to the nature and final result of 

 the movement now in progress towards securing for all 

 men "equality of opportunity in the rivalry of life," Mr. 

 Kidd nowhere explains what that term really means, and 

 how complete is the revolution that it implies. It is 

 clear, in the first place, that there can be no equality of 

 opportunity so long as a limited class remains in posses- 

 sion of the land on and by which all must live, and the 

 whole inherent value of which is the creation of society. 

 The resumption of the land of the country by the com- 

 munity is therefore the first essential to "equality of 

 opportunity." Again, hereditary wealth is equally op- 



