168 SUPER-ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



health ; neither does he manifest psychic adaptation, 

 since he has only lately begun to study Nature and 

 to understand that intelligence is the result of 

 conformity with natural facts. Man cannot, there- 

 fore, put into practice the law of selection or the 

 law of heredity, which are natural consequences of 

 adaptation, due to his having deviated from the 

 natural course of things, and to the fact that, the 

 present conception of property not being a natural 

 law, its finality and true significance in nature are 

 changed, and there arises the series of monstrosities 

 and absurdities that we all see and condemn. 



///. Psychic Selection 



It is enough to enunciate it to understand that 

 it does not and cannot exist : psychic selection 

 requires, in the first place, psychic adaptation, and 

 that this may continue to be selected and trans- 

 mitted by heredity, the individual must be healthy. 



Society has never concerned itself with the 

 rational cultivation of the intelligence, for until 

 lately it was ignorant of cerebral structure and 

 physiology. Imbeciles, criminals, or madmen are 

 cases that denounce the stupidity with which man 

 deals with the noblest of his faculties. These are 

 cases that ought not to be, and will not exist 

 when society is established on a normal basis. 



