228 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



that [what is on the surface] a natural process has 

 led up to the spiritual forces of morality and reason. 

 Being a natural process, it has never wholly shaken 

 off the influence of elimination. 



Of course, if Mr. Wallace is right, that there was 

 a special supernatural intervention when reason ap- 

 peared upon earth, it will not do to say even in the 

 most guarded sense that natural selection created 

 reason. But this quasi " miracle " is doubtful. Mr. 

 Wallace himself has laid the greatest stress upon the 

 preservation of reason by natural selection. We 

 prefer his teaching on that point, with all its difficul- 

 ties. Why (for example) have the irrational races 

 not died out ? Can we hold that the race nearest 

 man, yet irrational, died out in competition with him ? 

 Perhaps that is why it is so hard to find traces of the 

 missing link. Presumably competition is always 

 keenest between adjacent forms. Consequently, de- 

 feated species may disappear outright, and their dis- 

 appearance may explain that semblance of a gap 

 between the nearest existing species, which is so no- 

 ticeable in many parts of nature. I do not know 

 whether this suggestion has been made before. If 

 not, it may be offered for what it is worth to those 

 who are interested in defending natural selection. 



VII 



The view now sketched of natural selection that 

 it is a real force, but strictly limited has been out- 

 lined in a spirit of sympathy with idealistic philoso- 

 phy. Yet it is opposed to the views of several 

 distinguished Hegelian idealists. Some of them 



