288 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



struggle than facts really warrant. Further, we 

 have agreed decidedly to repel the suggestion that 

 natural selection strictly so-called has an appreci- 

 able effect in civilised society, or can account for ad- 

 vances in human morality. Still, unless we utterly 

 reject natural selection perhaps one might even 

 say, unless we close our eyes to manifest facts 

 we must admit that struggle exists in nature. And 

 it will need clear proof if we are to believe that 

 the same necessity does not hold in human life. 



Bagehot and Professor Alexander have mainly 

 dwelt on the importance of free discussion. That 

 is a kind of competition. It is very different, of 

 course, from natural selection. It implies reason 

 and speech and the possible wide diffusion of suc- 

 cessful opinions, a whole world of causes making 

 for rapid advance in contrast to the heart-breaking 

 tardiness of natural selection. Still, it is a form 

 of struggle. And while defeat here points towards 

 conversion rather than towards extinction, it would 

 be absurd to say that defeat in argument is always 

 painless. It is painful ! And it does not always 

 make for progress. We have ceased to believe as 

 confidently as the men of last generation in the 

 immediate victory of truth. 1 Yet if free discussion 

 is maintained it will bring us in time to the ulti- 

 mate victory of truth; we still believe that. And 

 we have learned too that the refusal to give un- 

 bounded sway to argument is not wholly bad. It 

 is not pure perversity. It is partly due to the 



1 There are interesting remarks on the evolution of beliefs in Dr. 

 F. B. Jevons's Introduction to the History of Religion at the beginning 

 of chap. xxvi. 



