22O FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



Vice. Mr. Sutherland lays much stress upon the 

 excellent results due to elimination of the vicious. 

 This is of course Natural Selection B, and nothing 

 more. Prolong to infinity the elimination of vicious 

 persons will that develop virtue ? At least it would 

 not, upon any view, improve its quality. Another 

 favourite idea is that any special vice, if left un- 

 checked -e.g. drunkenness will burn itself out by 

 natural selection. Dr. G. A. Reid's " Present Evolu- 

 tion of Man" 1 argues for this pleasing possibility. 

 Surely this is folly. Men are not of distinct kinds, 

 as the old Gnostics supposed. We can acquire quali- 

 ties by developing their germs ; we can make the 

 transition from the class of the sober to that of the 

 drunken. It is only too easy! Frightful as are 

 the penalties of such vice, when have they proved 

 sufficient to counteract the charms of jollity and 

 good fellowship, and of a " moderation " which so 

 easily becomes immoderate? Mr. Sutherland him- 

 self implies that each generation or two develops its 

 own criminal class, its own profligates. Assuredly 

 upon that point he is credible. Human nature is 

 versatile, and man is weak ; a new crop of drunkards 

 may easily be grown as the old ones die out. If you 

 leave everything to natural selection, that is how the 

 world will go. 



Crime, or human justice punishing crime, is also a 

 form of Natural Selection B. Eighty or a hundred 

 years ago criminals were " eliminated " wholesale, 

 with little profit to society ! The problem of human 

 advance proves unexpectedly complex. Brutal vio- 

 lence on the part of the law provoked more crime 



1 Quoted in Habit and Instinct and elsewhere. 



