In his excellent work on _Social Evolution_, Kidd accentuates the fact that our Western civilization, the highest yet attained, has been wholly religious and not scientific; that in intellectual capacity and attainments we are, even now, far below the average Greek mind of centuries ago. This civilization of ours, marvellous in spite of all its shortcomings and blots, is founded on abnegation and self-sacrifice which are wholly irrational, scientifically speaking. It is indeed scientifically impossible for science to have any other morality than the law of brute force and the survival of the strongest, whether it be on the battlefield, the mart, or on ’change. The law of supply and demand is a corollary of this law. Complacency for the weak and the lowly, that characterized Christianity from the beginning, and found expression in the legend of the Holy Grail, is all folly, the sublime folly of the Cross. The equality and brotherhood of man is also part of this “foolishness,” so repulsive to the cultured Greek mind. Nay, all our much-vaunted “free institutions” have grown out of this mustard seed, to which our Lord compared His kingdom on earth. “When the tree falls the shadow will depart,” as Tennyson wrote in another connexion. Nothing will be left to our poor science-ridden humanity but the cruel glare of human egoisms, passions, and ambitions. In one of those sonorous paradoxes which his soul loved, J. J. Rousseau assures us that “all men are born free, and everywhere they are in chains.” That all men are born free is as false as that all men are born upright and virtuous. History and experience give the lie to both assertions. It is an incontrovertible fact that before Christ slavery was the normal status of the masses in every age and clime, and Lucanus only expressed an universally accepted axiom when he cynically declared that the human race only existed for a few: _Humanum paucis vivit genus_. The doom of slavery was sealed when Peter began his memorable discourse, saying “Men and brethren” to circumcised and uncircumcised alike. On that day the Church began her mission of liberation by subjugation to the Christian law. But so ancient and deeply-rooted an institution as slavery could not wisely nor safely be felled suddenly. It was not till 1167 that Pope Alexander III published the charter of Christian liberty. “This law alone,” writes Voltaire (_Essai sur les mœurs_, chap. LXXXIII), “should render his memory precious to all people, as his efforts on behalf of liberty for Italy should endear him to Italians.” Wherever Christianity permeates, even in an emaciated form, slavery must disappear, and wherever Christianity has not penetrated slavery is and always will be a standing institution, with its concomitant degradation of women.