372 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



not less certain, though it may be less obvious, elsewhere. The 

 conditions of existence cannot really have had any rational 

 sanction for the great mass of the people during that prolonged 

 period when societies were developed under stress of circum- 

 stances on a military footing. . . . We can scarcely shut our eyes 

 to the fact that the future did not concern the existing mem- 

 bers, and that to the great mass of the people in these societies, 

 who lived and suffered in subjection to the dominant class which 

 a military organisation produced, the future of society, or even 

 of the race, was a matter of perfect indifference, compared with 

 the actual and obvious hardships of their own oppressed con- 

 dition in the present." And, again, with regard to the con- 

 ditions prevailing to-day in our Western civilisation, " the 

 conclusion appears inevitable that to the great masses of the 

 people, the so-called lower classes, . . . the conditions under which 

 they live and work are still without any rational sanction." i 

 And, further on, Mr. Kidd insists on the fact that " the teaching 

 of reason to the individual must always be that the present 

 time and his own interests therein are all-important to him. Yet 

 the forces which are working out our development are primarily 

 concerned, not with these interests of the individual, but with 

 those of the race."^ 



From these considerations Mr. Kidd draws the conclusion 

 that, if he consulted his reason only, man would put a stop to 

 these conditions of conflict, which, if they ensure the survival of 

 the stronger, who are a minority, do none the less ensure with 

 equal certainty the eUmination, or quasi-elimination, of the 

 weaker or less fit, who are, after all, a majority among the popula- 

 tion at any given moment. And Mr. Kidd believes the function of 

 religious beUefs to be the combating of this rational tendency, for 

 the greater good of coming generations, and of the race as a whole. 



With all our admiration for Mr. Kidd's work — and he has 

 earned the gratitude of sociological science for having been the 

 1 B. Kidd, Social Evolution, pp. 66-69. 2 lUd , p. 79. 



