2/2 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



its equalitarian dogma, a dogma that has been so 

 operative and so useful in the past, one surmises that 

 a high appreciation of the past usefulness of the 

 Christian religion is quite compatible with a very cool 

 and detached consideration of its claim to present 

 authority. Indeed, can any man believe that which 

 by definition is non-rational ? And to take another 

 point is not Mr. Kidd's proposed tampering with 

 the rigour of Christianity a most unholy piece of 

 rationalism ? Alas ! The countrymen of Cecil 

 Rhodes seem in small danger of being irrationally 

 altruistic, or democratic, or humanitarian in their 

 treatment of the black man ! And if the premises 

 are true, is not Mr. Kidd's personal counsel most sub- 

 versive and pernicious ? If religion blindly obeyed 

 in the past has made us what we now are, must we 

 not still obey religion with what is called blind 

 fidelity ? If irreligion has brought its penalties 

 hitherto, will not irreligious acts incur the same 

 doom hereafter ? And irreligious theory no less ! 



Biologically, Mr. Kidd seems to have left one pos- 

 sibility unconsidered. Congenital variations may be 

 due to the environment (by use-inheritance or by dif- 

 ferences of nutrition), or they may be due to amphi- 

 mixis ; or thirdly, they may be due to an inner ten- 

 dency to vary. Mr. Kidd, in his enthusiastic adhe- 

 rence to Weismann, has left the last possibility out of 

 consideration ; yet Romanes points out that Darwin 

 was inclined to look in that direction. Now, if there 

 is a tendency to variation in living species, if variation 

 is not simply forced on them by environment, there 

 is no reason for assuming that variation will be purely 



