xxiv HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



great social principle with sufficient hold over the individuals 

 composing society to be able to dominate the greater part of 

 their individual life, and to guide their efforts and aspirations in 

 one direction, towards one goal. Such a principle must needs 

 impress upon all the individual members of society the prim- 

 ordial fact of their soKdarity. It may be religion, it may be 

 patriotism, it may be professional honour and interests — ^in the 

 absence of any such principle capable of co-ordinating the 

 activities of the heterogeneous mentalities composing a society, 

 the latter will tend to break up into a number of loose molecules, 

 each group of which is conscious only of antagonism to the others. 

 Disaggregation is but the prelude to an inevitable disintegration 

 and disruption of society ; hence it behoves us to prevent any 

 such disaggregation. But this we can do only if we find a 

 principle capable of bringing home to each indi-vidual the fact of 

 his essential solidarity with all the other individuals adherent 

 to the same principle. 



It will be, perhaps, objected that, in the third part of this work, 

 we have identified the terms " supra-rational " and " religious "; 

 and that we have opposed " religion " to " Socialism " and 

 " science." The " religion of science " is a term with which we 

 are all familiar, and its adepts willingly speak of the " religion 

 of Socialism "; and it may consequently be argued that the 

 opposition between " rehgion," on the one hand, and " Sociahsm " 

 and " science " on the other, is unfounded. We may say at once 

 that we have used the word " religion " in the popular acceptance 

 of the word, as synonjrmous with " supra-rational." Socialism 

 makes no appeal to supra-rational principles — at least, not openly; 

 and, indeed, both the " religion of Sociahsm " and the " religion 

 of science " profess to be free from any taint of supra-rationalism ; 

 their adherents are for ever contrasting the " natural ethics " 

 and " rational morality " of their creed with the supra-natural 

 ethics and supra-rational morahty of the Christian creed. If 



