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Matches in DBpedia 2014 for { ?s ?p Benjamin Kidd (1858–1916) was a British sociologist. He entered the British civil service and did not become generally known until the publication of an essay, Social Evolution, in 1894. This work passed through several editions and was translated into German (1895), Swedish (1895), French (1896), Russian (1897), Italian (1898), Chinese (1899), Czech (1900), Danish (1900), and Arabic (1913).Kidd's major theme, set out in Social Evolution and continued in his later works, is that religion makes sense when seen as what he calls a 'supra-rational sanction' for our behaviour, which acts in the interest of survival of the group, and the yet-to-be-born members of the group, and is necessarily in conflict with our basic human instincts which act in favour of the individual in his lifetime, and also with our reason, which we tend to apply short-sightedly. Thus, while he is an evolutionist and atheist, Kidd proposed that religion, a feature of so many past and present societies, is probably essential to the evolutionary survival of any society.He finds flaws in the theories of both Herbert Spencer, and Karl Marx, neither of which give due recognition to the fact that continuing struggle is an essential condition for any organism to progress rather than degenerate under the influence of Darwinian natural selection. He sees Christianity as the major factor in the success of the Western world, and the Reformation in particular as the event that brought about a 'softening' of character in the population, with greater sensitivity to the suffering of others as exemplified by Jesus Christ. This change in character, with increased empathy, led, he claims, to greater equality of opportunity and the weakening of the will of the ruling classes to continue unfair practices like slavery. Those countries that continued the Roman Catholic tradition used it to sanction the divine right of kings and domination by the ruling class.He also rejects socialism, predicting that in future western societies there will be greater opportunity for all which will maximise the scope for creativity and competition among the masses, thus shifting the struggle for survival somewhat from the group as a whole to the individual. Socialism, he claimed, sought to end the struggle for survival, which could only result in a stagnant society that would inevitably degenerate because of an increase in the 'underclass' or fall victim to competition with more vigorous societies.. }

• Benjamin_Kidd abstract "Benjamin Kidd (1858–1916) was a British sociologist. He entered the British civil service and did not become generally known until the publication of an essay, Social Evolution, in 1894. This work passed through several editions and was translated into German (1895), Swedish (1895), French (1896), Russian (1897), Italian (1898), Chinese (1899), Czech (1900), Danish (1900), and Arabic (1913).Kidd's major theme, set out in Social Evolution and continued in his later works, is that religion makes sense when seen as what he calls a 'supra-rational sanction' for our behaviour, which acts in the interest of survival of the group, and the yet-to-be-born members of the group, and is necessarily in conflict with our basic human instincts which act in favour of the individual in his lifetime, and also with our reason, which we tend to apply short-sightedly. Thus, while he is an evolutionist and atheist, Kidd proposed that religion, a feature of so many past and present societies, is probably essential to the evolutionary survival of any society.He finds flaws in the theories of both Herbert Spencer, and Karl Marx, neither of which give due recognition to the fact that continuing struggle is an essential condition for any organism to progress rather than degenerate under the influence of Darwinian natural selection. He sees Christianity as the major factor in the success of the Western world, and the Reformation in particular as the event that brought about a 'softening' of character in the population, with greater sensitivity to the suffering of others as exemplified by Jesus Christ. This change in character, with increased empathy, led, he claims, to greater equality of opportunity and the weakening of the will of the ruling classes to continue unfair practices like slavery. Those countries that continued the Roman Catholic tradition used it to sanction the divine right of kings and domination by the ruling class.He also rejects socialism, predicting that in future western societies there will be greater opportunity for all which will maximise the scope for creativity and competition among the masses, thus shifting the struggle for survival somewhat from the group as a whole to the individual. Socialism, he claimed, sought to end the struggle for survival, which could only result in a stagnant society that would inevitably degenerate because of an increase in the 'underclass' or fall victim to competition with more vigorous societies.".