COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



That superadded process known as Civilization 

 or social progress has also been shown to con- 

 sist in a series of adjustments between the com- 

 munity and its environment, in the course of 

 which society becomes ever more and more com- 

 plex and more interdependent in its various 

 elements. 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 compli- 

 cation of cooperating processes by which Hu- 

 manity — the crown and glory of the universe 

 as we know it — has been evolved from a lower 

 type of animal life, in entire conformity to the 

 general law. The direct and relatively sim- 

 ple processes of physical adjustment became at 

 length almost wholly subordinated to the indi- 

 rect and relatively complex processes of psychi- 

 cal adjustment, so that variations in intelligence 

 came to be selected in preference to variations 

 in physique ; the increased complexity of psy- 

 chical adjustments 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 perform- 

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