Mr. Kidd’s position in reference to the central feature of his argument is radically false; but he handles some of his other themes very well. He shows clearly in his excellent chapter on modern socialism that a state of retrogression must ensue if all incentives to strife and competition are withdrawn. He does not show quite as clearly as he should that over-competition and too severe stress make the race deteriorate instead of improving; but he does show that there must be some competition, that there must be some strife. He makes it clear also that the true function of the State, as it interferes in social life, should be to make the chances of competition more even, not to abolish them. We wish the best men; and though we pity the man that falls or lags behind in the race, we do not on that account crown him with the victor’s wreath. We insist that the race shall be run on fairer terms than before because we remove all handicaps. We thus tend to make it more than ever a test of the real merits of the victor, and this means that the victor must strive heart and soul for success. Mr. Kidd’s attitude in describing socialism is excellent. He sympathizes with the wrongs which the socialistic reformer seeks to redress, but he insists that these wrongs must not be redressed, as the socialists would have them, at the cost of the welfare of mankind.
Mr. Kidd also sees that the movement for political equality has nearly come to an end, for its purpose has been nearly achieved. To it must now succeed a movement to bring all people into the rivalry of life on equal conditions of social opportunity. This is a very important point, and he deserves the utmost credit for bringing it out. It is the great central feature in the development of our time, and Mr. Kidd has seen it so clearly and presented it so forcibly that we cannot but regret that he should be so befogged in other portions of his argument.
Mr. Kidd has our cordial sympathy when he lays stress on the fact that our evolution cannot be called primarily intellectual. Of course there must be an intellectual evolution, too, and Mr. Kidd perhaps fails in not making this sufficiently plain. A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane; the negro, for instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as by anything else; but the prime factor in the preservation of a race is its power to attain a high degree of social efficiency. Love of order, ability to fight well and breed well, capacity to subordinate the interests of the individual to the interests of the community, these and similar rather humdrum qualities go to make up the sum of social efficiency. The race that has them is sure to overturn the race whose members have brilliant intellects, but who are cold and selfish and timid, who do not breed well or fight well, and who are not capable of disinterested love of the community. In other words, character is far more important than intellect to the race as to the individual. We need intellect, and there is no reason why we should not have it together with character; but if we must choose between the two we choose character without a moment’s hesitation.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] North American Review, July, 1895.
XV
THE LAW OF CIVILIZATION AND DECAY[23]
Few more melancholy books have been written than Mr. Brooks Adams’s Law of Civilization and Decay. It is a marvel of compressed statement. In a volume of less than four hundred pages Mr. Adams singles out some of the vital factors in the growth and evolution of civilized life during the last two thousand years; and so brilliant is his discussion of these factors as to give, though but a glimpse, yet one of the most vivid glimpses ever given, of some of the most important features in the world-life of Christendom. Of some of the features only; for a fundamentally defective point in Mr. Adams’s brilliant book is his failure to present certain phases of the life of the nations,—phases which are just as important as those which he discusses with such vigorous ability. Furthermore, he disregards not a few facts which would throw light on others, the weight of which he fully recognizes. Both these shortcomings are very natural in a writer who possesses an entirely original point of view, who is the first man to see clearly certain things that to his predecessors have been nebulous, and who writes with a fervent intensity of conviction, even in his bitterest cynicism, such as we are apt to associate rather with the prophet and reformer than with a historian to whom prophet and reformer alike appeal no more than do their antitypes. It is a rare thing for a historian to make a distinct contribution to the philosophy of history; and this Mr. Adams has done. Naturally enough, he, like other men who break new ground, tends here and there to draw a devious furrow.