ARTIFICIAL SELECTION 167 



taking into account that organisms are rendered 

 more perfect, and in a shorter time, the greater 

 their differentiation. And let it not be forgotten 

 that man was, is, and will be the most perfectible of 

 all animals. 



Natural and artificial selection receive their 

 impulse from the same energy that causes a simul- 

 taneous renewal of all vegetation in the spring, and 

 natural selection lost all its importance when 

 civilised man began to practise artificial selection. 

 As for psychic or intellectual selection, it is enough 

 to enunciate it to understand that it does not exist, 

 and never has existed, but that it is the selection 

 of the future. 



Consequently, it follows that Nature has practised 

 and does practise natural selection ; that man 

 employs artificial selection for plants and animals ; 

 but, on the contrary, psychic selection is entirely 

 to be initiated, it being an absurdity that man has 

 devoted himself to improving his kitchen garden 

 and his cattle, and has done nothing whatever for 

 his own selection. 



Social organisation, past and present, is what is 

 called a false evolution, that is, has no possible 

 development or solution, and, deviating from natural 

 laws, constitutes an absurdity. Man is an excep- 

 tion to all biological laws ; he has not the organic 

 adaptation that allows of his complete enjoyment of 



