Dragging Darwin In

The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, by Matt Ridley (Viking, 295 pp., $24.95)

FOR a species that calls itself rational, much of our thinking depends on a few, not easily proven premises. To compound the problem, not all people share the same premises; religious believers speak of good and evil, Marxists of class warfare, Freudians of the ego, and so forth. Despite different starting points, however, we can sometimes agree on practical conclusions. In The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley defends economic and political ideas with which many readers of NATIONAL REVIEW will concur. But he does so from within the murky confines of Darwinism.

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Michael J. Behe

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The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, by Matt Ridley (Viking, 295 pp., $24.95)

FOR a species that calls itself rational, much of our thinking depends on a few, not easily proven premises. To compound the problem, not all people share the same premises; religious believers speak of good and evil, Marxists of class warfare, Freudians of the ego, and so forth. Despite different starting points, however, we can sometimes agree on practical conclusions. In The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley defends economic and political ideas with which many readers of NATIONAL REVIEW will concur. But he does so from within the murky confines of Darwinism.