Mr. Kidd, having treated of religion in a preliminary way, and with much mystic vagueness, then attempts to describe the functions of religious belief in the evolution of society. He has already given definitions of religion quoted from different authors, and he now proceeds to give his own definition. But first he again insists upon his favorite theory, that there can be no rational basis for individual good conduct in society, using the word rational, according to his usual habit, as a synonym of selfish; and then asserts that there can be no such thing as a rational religion. Apparently all that Mr. Kidd demands on this point is that it shall be what he calls ultra-rational, a word which he prefers to irrational. In other words he casts aside as irrelevant all discussion as to a creed’s truth. Mr. Kidd then defines religion as being “a form of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the individual where his interests and the interests of the social organism are antagonistic, and by which the former are rendered subordinate to the latter in the general interest of the evolution which the race is undergoing,” and says that we have here the principle at the base of all religions. Of course this is simply not true. All those religions which busy themselves exclusively with the future life, and which even Mr. Kidd could hardly deny to be religious, do not have this principle at their base at all. They have nothing to do with the general interests of the evolution which the race is undergoing on this earth. They have to do only with the soul of the individual in the future life. They are not concerned with this world, they are concerned with the world to come. All religions, and all forms of religions, in which the principle of asceticism receives any marked development are positively antagonistic to the development of the social organism. They are against its interests. They do not tend in the least to subordinate the interests of the individual to the interests of the organism “in the general interest of the evolution which the race is undergoing.” A religion like that of the Shakers means the almost immediate extinction of the organism in which it develops. Such a religion distinctly subordinates the interests of the organism to the interests of the individual. The same is equally true of many of the more ascetic developments of Christianity and Islam. There is strong probability that there was a Celtic population in Iceland before the arrival of the Norsemen, but these Celts belonged to the Culdee sect of Christians. They were anchorites, and professed a creed which completely subordinated the development of the race on this earth to the well-being of the individual in the next. In consequence they died out and left no successors. There are creeds, such as most of the present day creeds of Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, which