84 



DR. ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD OS 



the average brain to-day. I believe it has been gravely suggested 

 that at that time their owners were becoming men, and the effort 

 was so great that extra brain capacity was required for thv? 

 purpose. Dr. A. E. \Yallace declares there are very many missing 

 Unks of all sorts, of which there should be necessarily almost 

 innumerable fossil remains, whereas he bitterly complains of thei-e 

 being hardly any in the two possible strata, the Eocene and the 

 Myocene ; but with remarkable courage, instead of accepting this 

 as a proof of their non-existence, he actually says it is rather a 

 proof of the imperfection of the geologic record. ^Yhy this should 

 be so imperfect we are not told, but it is evidently regarded as 

 improper. 



3. A third difficulty is the result of the application of Darwin's 

 evolution to man. In Dr. Benjamin Kidd's last work, " The 

 Science of Power," Dar^vinism is most gravely charged with 

 being the principal cause of the atrocities of the late war, becaus«? 

 its leading doctrine, which had a tremendous vogue in Germany, i? 

 the bestial law that " might is right, and is the sole force in the 

 path of progress ' ' ; and we must remember this law is ethical 

 as well as physical. Xow, civilisation depends on the subordina- 

 tion of the indi^-idual to the social welfare. Dar^-inian progress, 

 on the other hand, consists in the assertion of the individual 

 against the social welfare ; and this is what actually always occurs 

 in the degeneration of civilisation. It may be remarked in 

 passing, that Christianity immensely helps civilisation in asserting 

 this doctrine of self-abnegation as a leading tenet. Professor 

 Weismann considers that the highest form of civiUsation tends, 

 per se, incessantly to degenerate. " Darwinism is." says Ben- 

 jamin Ividd. " the very antithesis of the social integration which 

 is taking place in ci^'ilisation, for the ascending history of the 

 human race is the sacrifice of the individual to collective 

 efficiency. The law of sacrifice is the true law of progress." 

 *• In Germany, Hseckei was the supreme exponent of Darwin, 

 and Xietsche follo^^ ed. His teachings are the interpretations of 

 Darwinism. " 



" If A was able to kill B. before B killed A, A represented the 

 survival of the fittest and proves that might is right."* 



We are not surprised, when this bestial law of Darwin's is 

 extended to humanity, and has become the new gospel of Ger- 

 many, to find that Christianity was trodden under foot, and 

 declared to be the grreatest enemy to progress Germany had ever 

 had. Nietsche impiously declares Christ to be the worst blas- 

 phemer of all time, because He denied this bestial law for man ' 



This deo:radinc[ doctrine made the last war what it was in 

 incredible brutality and cruelty. If men will take the supposed 

 law of progress for beasts as the law for themselves, so far from 

 * B. KTDD, The Science of Power p. 48, etc. 



