32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a sense in which it is quite true, and it is important to observe what 

 that sense is. Putting aside all questions of immortality, it is not 

 difficult to conclude that mankind possess attributes which do not 

 belong to other creatures, and which make it necessary, in examining 

 the world, to put man in a class by himself. 



Take a few examples. Let the first be that of will. The question 

 is whether a human being has a command of his actions in a manner 

 in which no other creature has. Simple experience seems to me to 

 prove that he has : I do not feel that I need the help of philosophers 

 to solve the question. A dog or a horse has in a certain sense a will, 

 but I can calculate how a dog or a horse will act, if I know the condi- 

 tions to which it is subjected ; whereas I positively know from actual 

 experience that I can do as I choose, independently of all external 

 influences. Bring me to the test : tell me in any given circumstances 

 what those circumstances will lead me to do, and I will undertake to 

 do something different. And the power of will implies the capacity 

 for self-sacrifice. Every animal is by its very nature selfish. Doubt- 

 less there are, in this as in other things, faint reflections of humanity 

 in the humbler creatures, just as the oropyrj of the animal, which lasts 

 for a short time and utterly dies out when it has served its purpose, is 

 the faint reflection of that human love which lasts through life and 

 grows with years ; but there is nothing in the life of animals which 

 can be seriously named as being of the same kind as that feeling which 

 inspired a Howard, or a Wilberforce, or a St. Vincent de Paul. The 

 man who deliberately puts aside that which is most pleasant to men in 

 general, and which he himself has every capacity to enjoy, and does 

 something quite different from the dictates of his nature because he 

 judges that something to be right or good, exhibits a quality and a 

 power which is simply lacking in every other living creature except 

 the human race. 



Again, regard man as a being of purpose. I quoted a passage not 

 long ago from Ernst Haeckel, in which he denies the existence of pur- 

 pose in nature. Can purpose be denied to exist in man ? If I am not 

 mistaken, the whole history of civilization may be described as a de- 

 velopment of purpose. Every other creature is apparently content 

 with the condition in which it finds itself. Birds build nests as their 

 ancestors did thousands of years ago ; fishes have no ambition ; possi- 

 bly the time may have been when ants did not know the luxury of 

 keeping aphis-cows, or being waited upon by slaves of their own race ; 

 but, speaking generally, it may be said that unprogressiveness marks 

 all other animals, as distinctly as progressiveness does man. I put out 

 of consideration, as not belonging to the argument, the question of 

 evolution, and the progression of living things in that sense of the 

 word. I am speaking only of nature as we see it now, and not as it 

 may possibly once have been ; and certainly, as things are now, it 

 seems impossible to deny that while the animals about us are as fixed 



