CHAPTER VI 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 



We have endeavoured, in the foregoing chapters, to examine 

 the conditions actually prevalent in society, with the object of 

 judging of the fitness of our social state from a biological as well 

 as from a sociological point of view. We have examined the 

 occurrence of suicide, of insanity and alcoholism, and of syphilis, 

 considered as social factors. We have, further, glanced at some 

 of the conditions brought about by modern civilisation, such as 

 miUtarism, the unequal birth-rate among the different classes 

 of the population, and the general altruistic tendency of social 

 evolution — the tendency toward an altruism which, in its anxiety 

 to prevent a relatively small amount of necessary suffering 

 among the living, is likely to produce an enormous amount of 

 suffering among the generations to come. And, finally, we con- 

 sidered the nature of the force which underlies social evolution 

 in general. This force Mr. Benjamin Kidd has defined as ethical ; 

 but we are inclined to consider it to be none other than the force 

 of expansion inherent in life, which seeks ever higher and more 

 complete expression. Of this fundamental force the religions 

 themselves are a result. 



Our considerations do not, we think, tend to justify the some- 

 what exaggerated optimism with which Mr. Kidd seems to 

 regard the progress of the altruistic tendency of social evolution. 

 Altruism plays, after all, a very limited role in modem life ; 

 but where it does enter, it has, in great measure, misimderstood 

 its duty. Instead of seeking to extirpate diseased living genera- 



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