CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 267 



lessness or the value, of Mr. Kidd's doctrines of 

 religion and reason. In dealing with these points, he 

 must speak as a philosopher. His biological know- 

 ledge does nothing here to guard him against error. 



The doctrine of reason is similar to what we find in 

 Mr. A. J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief. Each 

 writer, in a footnote, 1 repudiates any higher or deeper 

 doctrine of reason than that which regards it as a 

 calculating machine or process of inference. This 

 implies that reason is passive in knowledge, and plays 

 no part in determining the motives of human con- 

 duct. The effect of the latter belief, when held by 

 intuitionalists, is that they postulate a moral faculty 

 of conscience alongside of reason and independent of 

 it. In Darwin the effect is this, that moral motives 

 are interpreted by the animal impulses of gregarious 

 creatures, impulses which are held to be extended in 

 range, but not altered in quality, by the advent of 

 reason. And in Drummond the effect is that he 

 looks for one set of impulses which even in animals 

 may be labelled good and right, in contrast to mere 

 self-seeking. Only by such a discovery is Drummond 

 able to save morality. 



In assuming that biological law may be applied en 

 masse to human conditions, Mr. Kidd seems to reaf- 

 firm the doctrine that reason has no material influence 

 upon motive. Yet it turns out otherwise. He does 

 believe that the animal nature of man is affected by 

 reason, viz. for the worse ! Conscious of what he is 

 doing, man objects to sacrifice himself to his family 



1 Social Evolution, p. 73, 2nd edition. Foundations of Belief ^ 

 p. 195. 



