IS PURE SELFISHNESS NATURAL P M R. KIDD, in the remarkable
book on Social Evolution, which has excited so much attention of late, though hardly even as much as it deserves, has used what is now a somewhat peculiar phraseology in describing human reason, the only advantage of which has been to give a new and in some respects useful emphasis to that Darwinian doctrine of evolution by natural selection from which as from his fund- amental basis of thought, Mr. Kidd's book takes its depar- ture. He writes as if there could be,—what there certainly could not be,—any evolution of species at all without some- thing more than mere superior strength in the nature of the species that eliminate the weaker varieties, by their conflict and competition with them. He calls every sanc- tion for the conditions of progress which is not purely -competitive, super-natural or super-rational. Now, that is a very convenient sort of nomenclature for the purpose of fixing attention on the collisions which tread down the weaker and less effective varieties of the human race, and which bring the stronger and more effective to the front, but it is in some respects also very misleading, for it suggests that the nature -which has most fight in it and least love, is the one which, on principles of mere reason, is bound to win. Now, surely that in- volves a conception of the essential nature of human character and reason which is quite twisted and perverse. Any race which, Tike that of the mythical Saturn, devoured its own offspring instead of cherishing them, would have no chance at all in the conflict for existence. There is no more essential condition of progress for any sort of species than the condition that it shall show aself-sacrificing courage and valour in the cherish- ing and defence of its own offspring,—qualities, in short, which are not selfish at all. We are quite aware that we arc not criticising Mr. Kidd's thought, so much as his language, when we insist on this criticism ; but there is an inconvenience in speaking of what is not purely selfish in human nature as if it were super-natural or super-rational that seems to ns to cloud the whole discussion of the changes which -evolution effects. No doubt Mr. Kidd is throughout con- tending for the existence of religious sanctions of the condi- tions of progress which he means to contrast sharply with the -selfish conditions that distinguish themselves by their capacity for killing out other human varieties either directly, or in- directly by stealing away the means of subsistence from them. But what we want to point out is that so far from the higher sanctions of progress being, as Mr. Kidd represents them, all super-natural or super-rational, the most essential of all the con- ditions of progress is the possession of that common kind of nature and reason which compels the parents to provide, even at the risk of their own life, for their offspring. Mr. Kidd has got what seems to us a very irrational conception of the meaning of the word reason. He says: "The central fact with which we are confronted in our progressive societies is, there- fore,, that the interests of the social organism, and those of the individuals comprising it at any time, are actually anta- gonistic; they can never be reconciled; they are inherently and essentially irreconcilable" (p. 78). And he proceeds to argue that they are not indeed reconciled, but adjusted by virtue of super-natural and super-rational forces which are in fact religious. But the great difficulty in this use of language is that the germ of this super-natural and super- rational element is just as visible in creatures far below man, as the blossom and fruit of that germ are in man himself. The depth of the parental instinct is one of the most powerful of all the conditions of the success of any species in securing for itself a living in this world. If there were not this deep, disinterested instinct in the higher forms of animal life, there would be no race with any real hold on existence at all. Even the instinct of the higher animals tells them that a "rogue elephant," for instance, has much less chance of securing its living than elephants which are loyal to the herd. Instinct, even in its lower forms, is based on the presumption that you must give if you are to take ; that there is no tie which can serve you well, unless you serve it well. It may be quite true that the instincts of the individual and of the social organism are often apparently antagonistic, but it is also true, and much oftener true, that for one such antagonism there are many instances in which they are identical. The animal that will not risk itself for the community in which it lives, is much more likely to be short-lived than the animal that will. An elephant which is not a "rogue elephant" has a much better chance of food and safety than one that is. Reason, even of the lowest kind, accepts the give and take in all society, and realises that no individual can be unwilling to give without producing in its fellows the unwillingness that it should take. We object to the words super-rational and super-natural as applying to all human acts which are not purely selfish. Even the lowest forms of reason are saturated with a certain disinterestedness. When we say, " There is a great deal of nature in that man," we do not mean a great deal of that which is above nature, which is above reason, but only a great deal of the kind of nature which constitutes a human being, which is according to reason in such creatures as we are,—a great deal of that thoroughly reasonable and appropriate thought and feeling, which, after its different kind, is no less visible in the lower animals, sometimes even more visible, than in man himself.
We are well aware that we do not differ in substance from Mr. Kidd, but only in the mode in which he expresses what we should express quite otherwise. But we think there is real danger in the habit to which he seems to lend a sanction of speaking of that which is of the very essence of human nature, as if it were something wholly foreign to it and impressed on it by religion only, just as the Calvinists, from a very different point of view, speak of " grace " as if it had no real affinity to the natural man, whom it is supposed wholly to transform. To our minds, there is nothing super-rational, or properly speaking super-natural, at all in that kind of partial but eager dis- interestedness which Mr. Kidd treats as wholly of religious origin. On the contrary, you never really see pure selfishness without some admixture of it. A mixture of selfishness and unselfishness, of "sweet reasonableness " with that grasping reasonableness which puts number one in the front of the battle, is of the very texture of human life, even in the most unregenerate members of our race. Because conflict and competition play a great part in human evolution, that is no reason at all why the reason of man should be represented as altogether constructed on the lower plane and adapted only to an encroaching aggressive organisation. In fact, it is not so. Before you can have a collision between one society and another, you must have in both societies the amount of loyal cohesion which makes any society strong, and not only so, but the reason must be so moulded and developed as habitually to take cognisance of those deeper sympathies which weld men together into families and States. If it is rational for man to use the advantages by which ho can push another man out of his place, or the advantages by which his clan or nation can push another clan or nation out of its place, it is no less rational for him to discern the opportunities for welding the family or the clan or the nation more closely together, even at the expense of not a few suffering individuals. So far from its being super-rational and super-natural to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others, it is most rational and most natural for " such creatures as we are, in such a world as the present," to avail ourselves of the opportunities for such sacrifices. In other words, it is not super-natural and super-rational to show a great deal of unselfishness, but it is perfectly natural, perfectly rational, even without any intru- sion of what is ordinarily called the super-natural elements of faith and grace, to do so. There would be nothing for faith and grace to take hold of in man, if there were not in his nature,—even at its worst, even at its lowest point,—a great deal of that unselfishness which it takes a divine mind to evince in the most exalted form. We do not think that the Calvinists themselves have done more to defame human nature than the biologists who lay so much stress on the rivalry and internecine conflicts to which we owe so much in the evolution of the higher characters, and so little on the self- sacrifice and devotion by which men are gradually fitted for those highest feats of heroism. All human nature, all human reason, is moulded by the help of these nobler ingredients, and it is these which fit us to receive the inflaence of that which is super-natural and super-rational. But it is a misun- derstanding of the nature of man, and even of the nature of many of the lower animals, not to recognise the naturalness and the rationality of the instincts by virtue of which sacrifice establishes itself as the keynote of every great religion. Super- natural religion vastly enhances the function of sacrifice in human nature, but it certainly does not originate it. Man is not man without it.
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