PSYCHIC ADAPTATION 93 



stock. All these data of modern science are com- 

 bined by H. Spencer, forming a systematic whole 

 which concentrates up to the present the greater 

 parallelism between Nature and human intelligence. 



A casual fact led to the discovery of the Rontgen 

 rays, followed by that of the radio-activity of 

 matter, a fact that for the moment has upset all 

 surmises, but which, when duly interpreted, that is, 

 when its real significance has been appreciated, 

 will mean a further step in advance, namely, the 

 correspondence between internal and external 

 order, and will thus forward human progress. 



The sum of knowledge embraced by positive 

 science is still very slender, for very slender also 

 are the brains whose state of culture allows of the 

 discovery of these parallel series. In view of the 

 great disproportion that still exists among human 

 beings between active and passive brains, one can 

 understand the state of barbarism in which one 

 lives, and the great task which is still left for man 

 to realise, whose need for learning will never be 

 exhausted. 



If the intelligence of a few individuals, whose 

 life is so small compared with time and space, has, 

 within the short period during which we have 

 existed, been able to conceive such great ideas as 

 those which form science, what will humanity not 

 accomplish if it devotes its intelligence to the 



