266 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



we have seen that the doctrine of necessary regress 

 in the absence of struggle and consequent advance is 

 a precarious deduction from Weismann's own prem- 

 ises, and is scarcely necessary to Mr. Kidd's socio- 

 logical system. 



Hitherto, however, we have considered only one 

 form of Mr. Kidd's dependence on biology. 1 So far, 

 we have spoken of his doctrine concerning men qua 

 physical organisms, exposed to the same conditions 

 as other living creatures. A different use of language 

 by Mr. Kidd must now be considered. His further 

 doctrines regarding reason and religion are brought 

 into connection with biology by means of the familiar 

 phrase, the social organism. True, Mr. Kidd thinks 

 that other writers who have used this phrase have led 

 us very little, if at all, farther on. Still, it points us 

 in the right direction, and the new guide is confident 

 of securing better results. Not man the individual, 

 but society as such, is now viewed as illustrating bio- 

 logical law. There are conditions of vitality or of 

 progress progress is a manifest fact; there are 

 difficulties revealed by observation or by conscious- 

 ness ; and there are safeguards or remedies discov- 

 ered by analysis. This does not sound very like 

 Darwinism, still less like Weismannism, though it is 

 brought forward as based on the latter. The truth 

 is, the basis here is nothing ; " social organism " is 

 only a phrase ; the analysis here is everything. All 

 depends upon the truth or erroneousness, the worth- 



1 Professor Lloyd Morgan shows very tellingly that Mr. Kidd is not 

 warranted by any facts he adduces in contrasting man's intellectual 

 and his moral evolution (Habit and Instinct, p. 345). Yet another 

 part of the case therefore breaks down. 



