CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 269 



Something must be added here regarding the use 

 of the word reason by Mr. Kidd and Mr. Balfour. 

 Reason is narrowed by them to reasoning, and even 

 {pace Mr. Balfour) to rationalism. Mr. Balfour's 

 footnote seems to be dealing Coleridge a sly hit when 

 it repudiates acquaintance with the Logos. Now no 

 doubt Coleridge had a provoking habit of exclaiming 

 " Logos " as if it were a talisman of magic power. 

 We have seen something similar in our own day on 

 the part of that very able and powerful and now ven- 

 erable Hegelian writer, Dr. Hutchison Stirling. In 

 his case, " the Notion " was the talismanic word. 

 Mr. Kidd again goes straight to Kant, 1 by whom, of 

 course, Coleridge was influenced. But Kant is very 

 obscure. Some provocation had then been offered 

 the plain Briton. And the way in which the doc- 

 trine of Reason or Logos shaped itself with Kant or 

 with Coleridge in many points alike ; in many 

 points, also, not alike was open to further criticism. 

 Every doctrine of " faculties " is, to a large extent, 

 artificial. Reason and Understanding shade into each 

 other, however we may choose to contrast them. 



But, just on that account, the plain Englishman 

 will find it hard to keep clear of the deeper and more 

 mystic features of reason. He wants to be a practi- 

 tioner in the simpler branch of the art ; well ! the 

 arts are not two but one. His own words will prove 

 disobedient to him. Words are something more than 

 the clothes of thought : they are its incarnation. 

 We inherit words ; we use them in our service, enno- 



1 Without reporting him very accurately. Grave objection might be 

 taken to the formulation of each of the three great Kantian positions 

 given by Mr. Kidd, 



