70 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



them fitter to survive in their given environment. 

 Theories like Lamarck's of the direct action of en- 

 vironment might be plausible, but they seemed to 

 lack verification. Darwin's theory sprang into a dif- 

 ferent position because it appealed undeniably to real 

 facts ; although it gave them a very startling exten- 

 sion in the range of their operation. Certainly the 

 plain man would have said that the tendency, though 

 real, was too infinitesimal for its work. One would 

 have said that natural selection was as utterly unable 

 to explain variety of species, as Sadler's doctrine, or 

 Herbert Spencer's hope, to meet the difficulties 

 alleged by Malthusianism regarding the human race. 

 No doubt, human reproduction becomes less rapid as 

 population thickens. < The alleged self-correcting 

 tendency of the growth of population is a true cause, 

 so far as it goes ; or rather it is a group of causes, 

 urgently requiring to be disentangled, to be studied, 

 named, estimated one by one ; but, in their whole re- 

 sult, they are altogether insufficient to check over- 

 population. And in like manner Spencer's cause is 

 a true cause. It is undoubtedly true that there is a 

 general correlation of fecundity with a low position 

 on the evolutionary scale ; it is true that, as mental 

 and aesthetic interests count for more, the physical 

 tendencies of sex will count for less in the human 

 race ; yet, as far ahead as we can trace, there will 

 still be problems of population. So one would have 

 said of natural selection too : It is a true cause, but 

 cannot possibly do the work asked of it. Its effects 

 are minute; being minute, they will be immensely 

 slow in achieving anything. A blind and indirect 

 method of selection, by striking out all the unfit 



