This last statement is in itself partly an answer to the position taken by Mr. Kidd, that there is for the individual no “rational sanction” for the conditions of progress. In a progressive community, where the conditions provide for the happiness of four-fifths or nine-tenths of the people, there is undoubtedly a rational sanction for progress both for the community at large and for the great bulk of its members; and if these members are on the whole vigorous and intelligent, the attitude of the smaller fraction who have failed will be a matter of little consequence. In such a community the conflict between the interests of the individual and the organism of which he is a part, upon which Mr. Kidd lays so much emphasis, is at a minimum. The stress is severest, the misery and suffering greatest, among precisely the communities which have made least progress--among the Bushmen, Australian black fellows, and root-digger Indians, for instance. Moreover, Mr. Kidd does not define what he means by “rational sanction.” Indeed one of his great troubles throughout is his failure to make proper definitions, and the extreme looseness with which he often uses the definitions he does make. Apparently by “rational” he means merely selfish, and proceeds upon the assumption that “reason” must always dictate to every man to do that which will give him the greatest amount of individual gratification at the moment, no matter what the cost may be to others or to the community at large. This is not so. Side by side with the selfish development in life there has been almost from the beginning a certain amount of unselfish development too; and in the evolution of humanity the unselfish side has, on the whole, tended steadily to increase at the expense of the selfish, notably in the progressive communities about whose future development Mr. Kidd is so ill at ease. A more supreme instance of unselfishness than is afforded by motherhood cannot be imagined; and when Mr. Kidd implies, as he does very clearly, that there is no rational sanction for the unselfishnsess of motherhood, for the unselfishness of duty, or loyalty, he merely misuses the word rational. When a creature has reached a certain stage of development it will cause the female more pain to see her offspring starve than to work for it, and she then has a very rational reason for so working. When humanity has reached a certain stage it will cause the individual more pain, a greater sense of degradation and shame and misery, to steal, to murder, or to lie, than to work hard and suffer discomfort. When man has reached this stage he has a very rational sanction for being truthful and honest. It might also parenthetically be stated that when he has reached this stage he has a tendency to relieve the sufferings of others, and he has for this course the excellent rational sanction that it makes him more uncomfortable to see misery unrelieved than it does to deny himself a little in order to relieve it.