Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/314

302 impels individuals to conduct which would be against their individual interests if they were mere individuals, instead of members of a race, conduct in which whole generations are to make sacrifices for the welfare of unborn generations—the total advantage of the race.

It is, I think, right to recognize the justice of Mr. Kidd's contention that modern sociologists, socialistic writers in particular, have exhibited a defective grasp of the social organism from the racial point of view. They have been content as a rule to work out the harmony of individual interests in a community at a given time, forgetting that the organic life which gives the full unity is the total life of a number of successive generations, constituting the history of a race. Just as an individual, being part of a society, appears to make a sacrifice of the full free development of his individuality for the sake of society, so no single generation of society lives for itself alone, but is determined in its conduct by considerations of the good of other generations. Nay further, even race life does not present a complete and isolated whole; the history of the complete race is determined by its contribution to the larger total of humanity, which again is a tributary to the vast cosmic life. Mr. Kidd's book deserves high praise for the vigorous assertion of the claim of the wider social organism upon the conduct of the several generations, and of the existence of the sentiment which supports this claim.

The race-preserving sentiment is, he rightly recognizes, analogous to the instinct by which a mother sacrifices herself for her child, only operating over a far wider sphere. Of the existence of this race-preserving force there can be no question. But is it irrational? Is it opposed to the interests of the individual or of the single generation? Can there be such antagonism between the true interests of the individual and the race as requires a special mysterious force, religion, to trick itself up in a number of fantastic and false guises (the falsity Kidd does not dispute), in order to frighten the individual into acting against his interest.

There is no such antagonism. Take the so-called sacrifice