264 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART IV 



waited till a rational race endowed with higher ten- 

 dencies " happened " to be evolved ; whereupon 

 humanity would quickly have been extinguished in 

 competition with the new race. But fortunately for 

 the prospects of mankind, such an evolution has 

 already " happened." Mankind is a race fitted to 

 survive. Or rather Mr. Kidd does not write on 

 this point like an ultra-Darwinian, giving the largest 

 possible play to chance, but like one who has a belief 

 in the purposefulness of organic life the biological 

 laws of human society supply a counterpoise to the 

 dangers introduced by reason. We have reason to 

 make us selfish ; but we have religion to make and 

 keep us altruistic, in despite of our reason. All 

 religions are preter-rational and altruistic, Christianity 

 the most of all. So we have been swayed, and have 

 struggled, and have progressed. We have struggled 

 in war. We have struggled by mere contact, when 

 lower races have melted away at the presence of 

 civilised man. We are struggling to some purpose 

 in the scramble for Africa. And, beyond a doubt, 

 we of the white races shall succeed in a further 

 struggle to control the Yellow Terror for the greater 

 good of humanity. Mr. Charles Pearson's formid- 

 able table, proving the rapid increase of blacks in the 

 United States, is met by another set of tables, prov- 

 ing that the increase is not so rapid after all. Such 

 effect has Christianity had in making us altruistic 

 that we have voluntarily widened the sphere of rights 

 within each nation. Yet we are not drifting into 

 socialism. Quite otherwise ; what the Zeitgeist 

 really means is to secure genuine equality of oppor- 

 tunity intensified struggle between citizen and 



