MAN IN NATURE 493 



thing preternatural in man, but simply by his placing himself 

 in alliance with certain natural powers and agencies, and by 

 their means attaining dominion over the rest. 



Here there rises before us a spectre which science and 

 philosophy appear afraid to face, and which asks the dread 

 question, — What is the cause of the apparent abnormality in 

 the relations of man and nature? In attempting to solve 

 this question, we must admit that the position of man, even 

 here, is not without natural analogies. The stronger preys 

 upon the weaker, the lower form gives place to the higher, 

 and in the progress of geological time old species have died 

 out in favour of newer, and old forms of life have been 

 exterminated by later successors. Man, as the newest and 

 highest of all, has thus the natural right to subdue and rule 

 the world. Yet there can be little doubt that he uses this 

 right unwisely and cruelly, and these terms themselves explain 

 why he does so, because they imply freedom of will. Given 

 a system of nature destitute of any being higher than the 

 instinctive animal, and introduce into it a free rational agent, 

 and you have at once an element of instability. So long as 

 his free thought and purpose continue in harmony with the 

 arrangements of his environment, so long all will be har- 

 monious ; but the very hypothesis of freedom implies that he 

 can act otherwise, and so perfect is the equilibrium of existing 

 things, that one wrong or unwise action may unsettle the nice 

 balance, and set in operation trains of causes and effects 

 producing continued and ever-increasing disturbance. Thus 

 the most primitive state of man, though destitute of all^ me- 

 chanical inventions, may have been better in relation to the 

 other parts of nature than any that he has subsequently 

 attained to. His " many inventions " have injured him in 

 his natural relations. Thi> " fall of man " we know as a 

 matter of observation and experience has actually occurred, 

 and it can be retrieved only by casting man back again into 

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