234 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



might account for predominance of habit of dying natural death; 

 but would not death by violence sufficiently prevent any race (im- 

 mersed in the struggle) from falling into wholesale decrepitude ? 

 Origin of sex and death a mystery; or "chance" variation! or 

 effect of molecular constitution of germ plasm ! Weismann's 

 appeal to " natural selection," while he denies " struggle," is meta- 

 physical in the worst sense Recapitulation, and note of some of 

 Weismann's changes of opinion before 1893 Especially this 

 change: ENVIRONMENT MAY DO SOMETHING TO MODIFY GERM 

 PLASM ! Making true use-inheritance conceivable, though not in- 

 evitable Mr. Kidd is anachronous Panmixia, the absence of 

 natural selection, is held to involve retrogression; important; ques- 

 tionable 



ALTHOUGH we have passed under review a reaction 

 from Darwinism, on moral grounds, or in the moral 

 region, yet the theory which in recent years has ex- 

 cited most attention, both popular and scientific, is 

 not a qualification of the Darwinian doctrine of 

 struggle, but an intensified assertion of it. Weis- 

 mann, like the young Rehoboam, meets all discon- 

 tent with a stiff er front and a severer policy. " My 

 father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise 

 you with scorpions." Darwin laid a terrible emphasis 

 upon struggle for existence; but he admitted other 

 causes of progress, such as sexual selection and use- 

 inheritance ; Weismann admits no cause of progress 

 whatsoever, except struggle for existence ; no selec- 

 tion of the beautiful by the instinct of sex, and above 

 all, no inheritance of acquired qualities. Such is 

 Weismann's position; a scientific position in regard 

 to technical questions of biology, held by a competent 

 and highly distinguished, though also a highly spec- 

 ulative man of science. But the position manifestly 

 involves or suggests inferences regarding human 

 progress : and these are worked out with devout 



