538 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



it is to be efEective, must possess. Morality implies religious 

 belief ; we bave been led to reject tbe view wbicb sees in tbe 

 fact of social life a sufficient foundation for social morality. 

 Transcending society itself, morality must be founded on a prin- 

 ciple whicb is suprasocial ; and if we admit that morality derives 

 its sanction from a principle which is external to society, and 

 which dominates it, we enter into the sphere of metaphysical 

 and religious beUef . 



Thus we may say, in conclusion, that, alike from the purely 

 individual point of view of the expansion of the emotional 

 nature, and from the larger sociological point of view of social 

 integration and stabiUty, reUgion is a necessary factor in human 

 life. In truth, these two points of view are in reaUty one. 

 Rehgious behef is a sociological necessity ; and, to fulfil its in- 

 dispensable social functions, this belief must be incarnated in 

 an organisation which is truly social in its nature. The stability 

 of the social structure is dependent on the security of its spiritual 

 foundation. 



Note. 



We would like to take this opportunity of replying to two criticisms 

 which Mr. Benjamin Kidd has made with regard, firstly, to our discussion 

 of the principles of Liberal polity, and, secondly, to our remarks on the 

 evolution of modern Japan. 



Mr. KJdd has objected that we are certainly wrong ia attributing the 

 Liberal principles of non-intervention and laissez-faire to Kant and the 

 German idea of the Redisstaai ; for these principles descend historically 

 from the period of the Enghsh Commonwealth. If we have, indeed, con- 

 veyed the impression that the doctrine of laissez-faire is derived from 

 Kant, then we must apologise for our clumsy phraseology. Such was 

 certainly not our intention. We did not mean to attribute to Kant the 

 paternity of an idea essentially English alike in its origin and develop- 

 ment, nor did we mean to imply that there is any direct relationship 

 between the school of Adam Smith and the school of Kant. We sought 

 to discover the main principles of Liberal polity, and we found these prin- 

 ciples to be similar in Germany and in England. We selected Kant as 

 the authorised exponent of Liberalism, because Kant with his theory of 

 the Bechtsstaat certainly laid the foundation of philosophic, as distinct 

 from economic. Liberalism. But, from another point of view, the economio 



