CHAP, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 29 1 



an end to acquiescence in the mere suppression of the 

 individual. But, if the first and lowest work of reason 

 is to break up the unity of sense, that unity may and 

 must be rebuilt in a higher fashion by the agencies of 

 morality and religion. So far we are willing to agree 

 with Mr. Kidd. Only we do not believe that the first 

 work of reason is its only work. We cannot admit 

 that morality and religion are divorced from reason. 



Still, if it be true, as wise men taught long before 

 Darwin or Adam Smith, that life is a battle if it be 

 true, as we have read in an old book, that the life of 

 a Christian man is a " fight of faith " then we may 

 well expect to find conflict and struggle appearing as 

 elements in the orderliness and beneficence of the 

 social organism. Not indeed such struggle as is 

 found in natural selection ; and very possibly not the 

 " cut-throat competition," as it is called, of unbridled 

 individualism, though in modern commerce we cut 

 prices, not throats, and nothing whatever is gained by 

 ignoring the advance which that fact implies. Not 

 every form of struggle, then, yet some form, and that 

 a keen one, is to be expected and desired. Morality 

 still leaves the individual personally responsible. He 

 must lead his own life, fight his own battle, gain his 

 own prize. And if, in the physical world, natural 

 selection has indeed been at work, if, so far as it 

 has been at work, its cruel or seeming cruel methods 

 have secured this notable result, a teeming population 

 of healthy, vigorous creatures, fit in every fibre, fit or 

 fittest on all the varied lines along which evolution 

 has reached, then may it not be that social 

 struggle, acting in union doubtless with other forces, 

 will give us an effective and vigorous and truly happy 



