Mr. Balfour delivered the Rectorial address to the Uni- versity
of Glasgow on Thursday. It was one of remarkable power. He took for his subject the modern belief (or illusion) that there is some irresistible "law of progress" by which human society is governed, independently of the wisdom and conduct of the successive generations in whose history that law is exemplified, and endeavoured to show how little evidence there is for the existence of any such automatic law. He denied that the argument from history shows us anything but a succession of national civilisations which have successively collapsed, each in its time, leaving behind it others which are no more guaranteed against collapse than their predecessors, and which, moreover, still tolerate amongst them a number of savage races living in very much the same condition as the prehistoric men of the Stone Age. Unless some cause can be shown to be at work which will guarantee existing national civilisation against collapse, the mere generalisation from history is almost worthless. He examined the biological argument which professes to show a necessary evolution of the race, and dismissed it with the remark that the secret of its main operative force,—the elimination of the poorer and weaker specimens of humanity through suc- cumbing to starvation or war,—has long ago ceased to be at work amongst civilised men. As to the alleged evolution of society itself through the transmission to descendants of the more useful acquired habits of mind and character, he showed how little evidence there is for it, the greater biolo- gists of the present day maintaining that heredity only transmits variations which are born with the parent, not qualities gained by the experience of life.
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