EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY. 51 



without such sanction in the highest civilization of the 

 present day as at any past period.'^ l 



These conclusions will not have been quoted in vain 

 if they show the impossible positions to which a 

 writer, whose contribution otherwise is of profound 

 and permanent value, is committed by a false reading 

 of Nature. Is it conceivable, a priori, that the human 

 reason should be put to confusion by a breach of the 

 Law of Continuity at the very point where its sus- 

 tained action is of vital moment? The whole com- 

 plaint, which runs like a dirge through every chapter 

 of this book, is founded on a misapprehension of the 

 fundamental laws which govern the processes of 

 Evolution. The factors of Darwin and Weismann 

 are assumed to contain an ultimate interpretation of 

 the course of things. For all time the conditions of 

 existence are taken as established by these authorities. 

 With the Struggle for Life in sole possession of the 

 field no one, therefore, we are warned, need ever 

 repeat the gratuitous experiment of the' past, of 

 Socrates, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Comte, and Herbert' 

 Spencer, to find a sanction for morality in Nature. 

 " All methods and systems alike, which have endeav- 

 ored to find in the nature of things any universal 

 rational sanction for individual conduct in a progress- 

 ive society, must be ultimately fruitless. They are 

 all alike inherently unscientific in that they attempt 

 to do what the fundamental conditions of existence 

 render impossible." And Mr. Kidd puts a climax on 

 his devotion to the doctrine of his masters by mourn- 

 ing over " the incalculable loss to English Science 

 arid English Philosophy" because Herbert Spencer's 

 1 Op. cit., pp. 77-78. 



