20 * : EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



place in the midst of all this systematised order ? Is 

 he product, or agent, or is he in some sense both ? 

 How has he found his place on the summit of exist 

 ence, and what has he done since coming to his 

 heritage ? Certainly his work has been neither of 

 short duration, nor of small significance. 



Science has carried us far beyond elementary 

 questions here. What we have to seek is a full 

 harmony of the complex system of existence, the 

 true conception of the cosmic system. Accepting as 

 ample the evidence for Evolution, we still need vastly 

 to expand our conceptions of Nature. The antiquity 

 of man, the progress of life on the earth before his 

 coming, and the progress since, need to be harmonised, 

 as they have not yet been. In a very large sense it 

 holds true that the crowning feature is not even man s 

 nature, but man s work, as that has contributed to 

 wards the order everywhere visible. A natural history 

 method, to be true to its conditions, must make 

 account of the entire range of human history, tracing 

 human causality as it has been engaged in higher 

 work than anything achieved in the history of animal 

 life. Questions of comparative intelligence of animals 

 and men, lie in our rear at this stage. We are 

 advancing into the field of rational agency; we are 

 coming in sight of the characteristics of a moral life, 

 in which animals have no part. Action from above 

 downwards is clearly recognised, when man s agency 

 is in contemplation. Illustrations of this are all 

 around. Facts as to artificial selection, which 

 Darwin found helpful in the earlier stages of con 

 structive effort, present part of the evidence to which 

 reference is now made. John Stuart Mill s dis- 



