Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/312

Rh For when the popular reason is got into play, finding no rational justification for the struggle with its "natural selection," it may proceed to put a stop to it, organizing the natural resources of the race so as to secure a comfortable competence for all alike, and thus sacrificing the progress of the future of the race in the interest of the existing generation. This tendency Mr. Kidd finds to be taking shape in modern socialism. Socialism, he urges, is, in spite of some woolly-headed advocates, eminently rational; intellectual criticism cannot break down its main positions; a rationalistic community striving to make the most of the present would certainly organize itself on a socialist basis, so as to put an end to the strain and misery of the struggle for existence, thus sealing the doom of the race, which from that time must weaken, deteriorate, and eventually perish from the face of the earth.

Socialism, he urges, is not really a culmination of the democratic or humanitarian movement of the last hundred years; it is its antithesis. Though dominated chiefly by humanitarian and moral forces, the softening and deepening in the character of the power held by classes, which has brought about a series of concessions to the masses, this democratic movement is only genuinely progressive so far as it increases the rivalry of life by placing a larger and larger proportion of the population upon an equality in the competition. Socialism, by putting an end to this rivalry, is retrogressive. But is reason to have her way, and is social progress to be checked by this suicidal policy?

There is another force in eternal strife with reason—that is, religion—the eternal repository of the race-preserving instincts in all ages and all races. Scientific evolution, by ignoring religion—Mr. Kidd says it has ignored it—has neglected the one truly progressive force in history. Intellectual ascendency has never succeeded in maintaining the power and integrity of a race. Social evolution is not engaged in raising the intellectual caliber of man: the Greeks in the age of Pericles, the Romans of the early empire, the men of our own Elizabethan era were intellectually as high and probably much higher than we are;