176 SUPER-ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



to perceive what it is and how it can be effected, 

 then, just as one religion has substituted another, 

 and one philosophy another philosophy, to our 

 present misery will succeed a happier state. To 

 improve, and to free oneself from such misery, 

 is a constant longing. Scepticism and pessimism 

 are due to the painful expectation of times dreamed 

 of but unrealised ; but humanity desires nothing 

 else but guidance towards a new life, and in its 

 eagerness for happiness to arrive at a better 

 solution. 



On saying this, we must not forget what has 

 already been said in the Introduction apropos of 

 routine, namely, that there will be a great number 

 of brains in which the peculiar ideas they inherited 

 from their ancestors never allow of their reaching a 

 conception of a situation differing from the present, 

 because the associations formed by the proto- 

 plasmic elongations of the neuronas are still invari- 

 able, and it will not be possible for them to form 

 another chain of associations in order to adapt new 

 ideas. It is useless to rely upon these brains, not 

 from ill-will, but from lack of ability to adapt 

 themselves. 



This, far from being an inconvenience, will be an 

 advantage, since they will be accepted only by 

 those possessed of an appropriate temperament or 

 education; that is, there will be a selection, the 



