PSYCHIC ADAPTATION 87 



ance with the gradual completion and perfecting 

 of these connections, the nervous system forms 

 correlatively, by fresh interlacings, a single woof 

 of greater completeness and perfection." l 



One now sees how the most rudimentary psychic 

 life is an adaptation to the external medium, and 

 how Nature possesses herself of this first trace 

 of intelligence to mould it to her image, and, 

 increasing in series ever more distinct and complex, 

 she rules paramount in human intelligence. 



I will continue to quote Herbert Spencer, to 

 show the notable fact that this great thinker has 

 not solved the problem, when his whole theory 

 of the association of ideas should have led him 

 naturally to such a conclusion. Never has human 

 brain discovered so close a correspondence with 

 Nature as is presented by the philosophy of 

 Herbert Spencer, whose ideas seem to vibrate in 

 harmony with all the succeeding and simultaneous 

 series of natural phenomena. Thus his work is 

 the first of its kind, and the most complete that 

 any age has produced. 



Referring to the differentiation itself, Herbert 

 Spencer states : " But this progress is not merely 

 a progress in the physiological branch of the 

 matter, but also a progress towards the separa- 

 tion between physical and psychic action, the 



1 H. Spencer, Principes de Psychologie, p. 420. 



