NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 555 



singularly apart. As Mr. Hewlett says in his Richard 

 Y ea-and-N ay : " ' Lord, what is man?' cried the Psalmist 

 in his dejection. t Lord, what is man not?' cry we, who 

 know more of him ? ' 



As the ' self-made ' man is proud to show the cottage 

 where he was born, so generic man may take credit to him- 

 self in contrasting his present position with his l humble 

 origin '. He must be very self-complacent, however, if he 

 has no feeling of gratitude in respect of- -we cannot say to 

 those simple creatures without whom he would be yet 

 more imperfect than he is. For while many know the handi- 

 cap of inherited animal passions sometimes asserting them- 

 selves all too vehemently, and of humbling atavisms that 

 come to the surface occasionally from the deep undercurrent 

 of the Unconscious, can there be forgetfulness of the plus 

 side of our inheritance, the deep instincts of kinship, of 

 mutual aid, of love, and of parenthood whose roots go far 

 back into the pre-human world. We must be very careful, 

 too, in inquiring into the accuracy of the statements that 

 are made in regard to what is supposed to be carried on 

 from mammals to men. 



The truth lies between two extremes. It is erroneous, 

 on the one hand, to regard man as isolated and the great 

 exception, as " a moral Melchizedek, without father, without 

 mother ", and as one who to save his soul must combat the 

 ' cosmic process '. For this overlooks the fact of solidarity, 

 and raises the gratuitous problem how a moral being can 

 have emerged from non-moral or immoral antecedents. It 

 is erroneous, on the other hand, and a fallacious biologism 

 to think that human evolution can be scientifically handled 

 without a recognition of Man as a rational and social per- 

 sonality, pre-eminent even on the average, at his best and 



