282 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



add here that his vision of endlessly successive ideals 

 has no authority from Darwinism. In nature, we see 

 clearly that the process of organic evolution has its 

 definite limits, and comes, now on one line and now 

 on another, to a fixed goal. And the assertion that 

 the reigning ideal is the true ideal for its time, though 

 only for its time, finds no justification in the world 

 of nature or in Darwinism. It implies some other 

 philosophy ; and the unknown philosophy does not 

 attract us. 



Professor Ritchie is hard to group. He tells us 

 that Darwinism applies mutatis mutandis to human 

 things. " How else ? " With such a saving clause 

 one might predicate any attribute of any subject. 

 The stuffed horse of Wallenstein at Prague, with 

 " only the head, legs, and part of the body renewed," 

 is the same horse still, no doubt ; mutatis mutandis. 

 So long as Professor Ritchie does not take a general 

 view of the changes which he recognises, we do not 

 know whether he believes in applying Darwinism by 

 analogy to a higher evolutionary region, or in extend- 

 ing Darwinism to cover the whole field. Perhaps he 

 has never faced that distinction. In any case, his 

 opinions are left too vague to be estimated. He 

 makes no attempt to find guidance for conduct in 

 Darwinism; unless perhaps from its "not sanction- 

 ing " struggle or laissez faire ? 



Fourthly, however, we have the assertion of Dar- 

 winism as an all-embracing (organic and super- 

 organic) philosophy. This is found in Mr. A. 

 Sutherland, and we are not a little indebted to him 

 for working it out and showing where it leads. It 

 means the denial of the existence of human reason as 



