2/4 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



and tedious process of natural selection. It is per- 

 fectly conceivable that purposeful variations 1 occur 

 spontaneously in each species, and are a direct source 

 of progress. 



When we leave biology for sociology and the 

 sphere of reason, the possibility spoken of becomes a 

 certainty. Reason tends to continuous advance ; 

 and its achievements are inherited by means of 

 human culture, with its special agency, human or 

 rational speech, passing into higher and more power- 

 ful developments in the form of writing and again of 

 printing. This is recognised in Mr. Leslie Stephen's 

 view of society ; society is an organic tissue, in virtue 

 of the communion which exists between its parts, 

 through reason and through speech as the embodi- 

 ment of reason. The definition of civilisation found 

 in Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics, viz. 

 " the sum of those contrivances which enable human 

 beings to advance independently of [biological] 

 heredity," points us in the right direction. Mr. Kidd 

 has missed the obvious truth because he is too intent 

 on biology, and too hurried in his glance at human 

 society and human reason. " Biologists " may prove 

 if they can "the non-transmission to offspring of 

 qualities acquired during the lifetime of the parent." 

 If biologists make out their case, they prove that 

 such qualities are not transmitted biologically or 

 organically. They cannot possibly show that "the 

 effects of use and education " are not " transmitted by 

 inheritance." Every time a child goes to school, he 

 is entering upon such an inheritance. True, he may 



1 Not that we can claim Darwin's authority for this belief. 



