PSYCHIC ADAPTATION 85 



Herbert Spencer to take account of it. Social 

 science, the principal aim of which is the happiness 

 of mankind, is the end of the law of evolution, 

 both of which find their confirmation and com- 

 pletion free from contradiction or extenuating 

 circumstances. 



Psychic life starts with the lowest in the animal 

 scale, and continues to develop until it forms the 

 intelligence of the human being, contemporaneous 

 with whose appearance on the earth for a life 

 mutually interdependent arises the first germ of 

 the new super- organism human society. 



Psychic and physical life are widely differenti- 

 ated in man ; the one has almost completed its 

 evolution, whilst the other, the life of the intellect, 

 still continues, and is destined to a wonderful 

 development. 



The law of evolution, applied to the psychic life, 

 will serve to demonstrate, first, how man, through 

 having severed himself from natural laws, lives in 

 an absurd state of civilisation ; secondly, that this 

 very law, when properly applied to society, is the 

 one that must conduce to man's being perfected 

 indefinitely. 



For this study we must follow Herbert Spencer, 

 who has probed this delicate subject with the 

 intuition peculiar to genius : 



" It has been shown that, starting from the lower 



