Social and Individual Interests 359 



with no rational or scientific substitute adopted 

 in place of authority, the human race has become 

 like a ship without compass or rudder, tossed about 

 at the mercy of every shifting wind and wave. 



In the book in which Benjamin Kidd has tried 

 to prove by means of reason that reason is a dan- 

 gerous guide in human relations, he has included 

 the following definition of religion : 



A religion is a form of belief, providing an ultra- 

 rational sanction for that lar^e class of conduct in 

 the individual where his interests and the interests of 

 the social organism are antagonistic, and by which the 

 former are rendered subordinate to the latter in the 

 general interests of the evolution which the race is 

 undergoing.^ 



Mr. Kidd is wrong in two respects. There is no 

 conflict between the interests of the individual and 

 the interests of the social organism of which he is a 

 part any more than there is a conflict between the 

 interests of the human brain and the human body, 

 of which it is a part. The antagonism appears to 

 exist because of the elementary state of our social 

 thinking. Nor is religion an ultra-rational sanc- 

 tion for social conduct, for Mr. Kidd uses rational 

 processes in the attempt to convince us that social 

 conduct is desirable and has apparently reached 

 this conclusion for himself by a rational process. 



' Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution, Macmillan & Co., 1895, 

 chapter v. 



