CH. I.] THE QUESTION BESTATEB. 869 



a process, consisting in a series of adjustments "between the 

 organism and its environment ; and that Mind, objectively 

 considered, is a special form of Life, consisting in a specialized 

 portion of the series of adjustments. In these wondrous 

 processes we have found the Law of Evolution most beauti- 

 fully exemplified ; the degree of Life, or of Mind, being 

 high in proportion not only to the extent which the adjust- 

 ments cover, but also to their complexity, definiteness, and 

 coherence. That superadded process known as Civilization 

 or social progress, has also been shown to consist in a series 

 of adjustments between the community and its environ- 

 ment, in the course of which society becomes ever more and 

 more complex and more interdependent in its various ele- 

 ments. That moral sense which underlies social progress 

 and renders it possible, has been exhibited as the noble 

 product of the slow organization of those feelings of pleasure 

 and pain which, in highly-developed organisms, are mainly 

 concerned in enhancing the perfectness of the adjustments 

 in which Life consists. And finally we have witnessed the 

 wonderful complication of cooperating processes by which 

 Humanity — the crown and glory of the universe as we 

 know it — has been evolved from a lower type of animal life, 

 'm entire conformity to the general law. The direct and 

 relatively-simple processes of physical adjustment became 

 at length almost wholly subordinated to the indirect and 

 relatively-complex processes of psychical adjustment, so that 

 variations in intelligence came to be selected in preference to 

 'ariations in physique ; the increased complexity of psychical 

 i„djustments entailed the lengthening of the period required 

 for organizing them; the lengthening of infancy, thus 

 entailed, brought about the segregation, into permanent 

 family -groups, of individuals associated for the performance 

 of sexual and parental functions ; the maintenance of such 

 family-groups involved the setting up of permanent reciprocal 

 necessities of behaviour among the members of the group ; 



VOL. II. B B 



