Organization in Relation to Environment 799 



could have mistaken this and been persuaded that Hfe was 

 to be thankfully enjoyed, and man was destined to be happy." 



Amiel, at times as despairing a pessimist as Schopenhauer, 

 wrote amid the "grandiose splendour" of the Bel Alp (232, 2: 

 78): "What is Man — this weed which a sunbeam withers? 

 What is our life in the infinite abyss? I feel a sort of sacred 

 terror, not only for myself, but for my race, for all that is mor- 

 tal. . . . I am conscious of a mad clinging to life, and 

 at the same time of a rush of despair and repentance, which 

 forces from me a cry for pardon. And then, all this hidden 

 agony dissolves in wearied submission. . . . But there 

 is no peace except in order, in law. Am I in order? Alas no! 

 My changeable and restless nature will torment me to the 

 end." 



Again Amiel says {282, 1: 155): "Our work — my work — 

 consists in taming, subduing, evangelizing, and angelizing the 

 evil self, and in restoring harmony with the good self. Sal- 

 vation lies in abandoning the evil self in principle, and in tak- 

 ing refuge with the other, the divine self." 



Were we to attempt to review further, even by condensed 

 extracts, the thousand views on human existence that have 

 been offered by pure scientists, by psychologists, by phil- 

 osophers, by litterateurs, by poets, volumes would be needed. 

 The above quotations from Schopenhauer and Amiel repre- 

 sent the opinions of sensitive philosophers of akin and yet 

 diverse tendencies. How are all to be reconciled? Amiel, 

 like many others, wrestles to reach the solution. 



Let us try to learn whether a great and steadily advancing 

 wave of organic evolution cannot be traced that would explain 

 many present individual and social relations. Amiel pro- 

 claims that there is no peace except in order, in law. If this 

 be true man should show the law in his evolutionary history. 

 Accepting such a possibility, in relation to the views already 

 advanced in this work up to the present point, we would con- 

 sider that super-man has develojjed through four successive 

 and advancing stages of complexity. First, and forming a 

 continuous, a lasting, a wide foundation of vital action, is the 



