16 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



further, not having any direct interest in a construc 

 tive theory of cosmic causes, conditions, and results. 

 In this way it happened that special knowledge, care 

 fully accumulated, had a value for science, unnoticed 

 by those who considered only market values. Animal 

 fanciers were gathered into distinct groups. Pigeon 

 fanciers were commonly a different class from horse 

 fanciers. Science suffered loss from this severance 

 of classes interested in improved breeds of animals. 

 The one set of men were not well up in the special 

 knowledge which another set had at their finger- 

 ends. Observations as to ants did not pay/ and 

 were accordingly held cheap by men of a business 

 turn of mind. Breeders of pigeons, and dog fanciers, 

 had sheaves of facts ready to hand, when Darwin was 

 still absorbed with the formation of coral reefs. But 

 this circumstance, that common observers were so far 

 in possession of the facts as serviceable for them 

 selves, lent valuable support to the scientific observer, 

 as he came slowly along the track. 



When, however, the natural history of rational life 

 is pondered, the situation of things is considerably 

 different. We ought to know human life better than 

 any other : but then, it is much harder to know. Our 

 whole experience is such as belongs to rational life, 

 acting within the conditions of organic existence ; and 

 this experience raises problems entirely new, involv 

 ing human reason itself in deepest perplexity. It is 

 comparatively easy to test the limits of muscular 

 energy ; it is far from easy to measure the possibilities 

 of a rational life. Few men deliberately face the 

 problems which rational life raises for itself, about 

 itself. Of the men who have most patiently studied 



