Page:Divine Selection or The Survival of the Useful.djvu/49

 vivals in the present; that theory of psychology, developed from Hume to Huxley, in which the content of the human mind is viewed simply as a condition in which the present is related to past experience either in the individual or in the race; that widely prevalent conception of social progress developed from Voltaire to Marx as a movement towards a state in which the self-conscious present is to be finally organized towards the complete expression of its own ascendant interests; have each passed definitely into the background, nevermore to receive the authoritative assent of the human intellect to its premises."

In a summary, Mr. Kidd's theory is that natural selection operates, not to favor the individual or even the present, but that its interests are always in the future. Throughout the long ages of struggle, "efficiency in the future is