268 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



By contrast, the interest of man is in all things 

 around him, and in all the relations of things, as 

 distinct from supply of his bodily wants. It is in 

 this way that Mr. Herbert Spencer 1 answers those 

 who contend that psychology is a part of biology, 

 and should be merged in it. Throughout biology 

 proper, the organism and its correlated phenomena 

 practically monopolises the attention. Hence the 

 induction, The life of every organism is a continuous 

 adaptation of its inner actions to outer actions. But 

 in psychology the correlated phenomena of the en 

 vironment are at every step avowedly and distinctly 

 recognised ; not merely those phenomena related to 

 the wants of organic life. Hence the propositions of 

 psychology refer to its multitudinous, special, and 

 ever- varying phenomena. The rational life concerns 

 itself with all that is around, surveying the whole 

 field of existence lying open to contemplation. Man 

 has an eye for more than meat. On account of this 

 higher interest, the wants of the organism, though 

 quite as urgent for him as for the animal, drop into 

 a secondary place within the sweep of his observation 

 and effort. Even for the man most removed from 

 civilisation, for example, for the red Indian, who roams 

 the forest, and for whom supply of food is the main 

 concern, this end of his efforts bringing him into as 

 close analogy with that of the animal as human life 

 can be, that forest has attraction which only rational 

 power can concern itself with. The forest is his 

 country ; there are tracts there, and varieties of trees, 

 and a luring wealth of light and shade, and harmonies 

 of sound, and places of shelter, and signs of coming 



1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 134, Pt. ii. 54. 



