230 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



been inherited as ready-made rudiments; they have 

 been built up along with the rest of the organism, 

 taking their full share in the reciprocities of organic 

 growth. Ex hypothesi^ what is really (and not merely 

 apparently and externally) useless must long ago 

 have disappeared under the fierce strain of struggle 

 for existence. Yes, very good. Nothing is abso- 

 lutely unfit. The most rudimentary part must dis- 

 charge some obscure physiological function in the 

 rhythm of life. But are we really to suppose that 

 the human body would be wrecked and ruined if 

 (say) the ilium ccecum were somehow and safely 

 evolved out of existence as the surgeon on emer- 

 gency may cut it out ? If such a body arose, would it 

 not be a better body than ours, so far as hitherto 

 evolved ? Is it unthinkable that nature should im- 

 prove in this fashion ? Is not the whole living world 

 relatively fit, indeed, but also, in many important 

 details, relatively unfit, and is not an aborted organ 

 very plainly marked by nature as, in one most impor- 

 tant sense, unfit? 



Mr. Sandeman presumably implies the absolute 

 systematic perfection of the whole universe as well as 

 of each individual organism, and presumably affirms 

 this postulate on metaphysical grounds. Even with- 

 out repudiating it, we may urge that the idea is not 

 applicable off-hand to the world of nature. Men will 

 not readily surrender that dynamic view of nature, as 

 a great and incomplete process, which Darwin and 

 other evolutionary thinkers have taught us. The 

 optimism of Mr. Sandeman's own creed does not 

 force us to affirm the perfection of the individual 

 organism save as a part in the process by which the 

 perfect whole evolves itself. 



