LIFE IN ITS LOWER AND HIGHER* FORMS 37 



man s place in Nature; but, after all these regions 

 of inquiry have been exhausted, the distinguishing 

 features of a rational life await explanation. Science 

 itself being witness, the superiority of human life calls 

 for still more searching scrutiny. 



Students of philosophy will here gladly welcome 

 the utterance of Professor Burdon Sanderson, as an 

 exponent of the scientific position : There is little 

 ground for the apprehension that exists in the minds 

 of some, that the habit of scrutinising the mechanism 

 of life tends to make men regard what can be so 

 learned as the only kind of knowledge. The tendency 

 is now certainly rather in the other direction. What 

 we have to guard against is the mixing of two 

 methods, and, so far as we are concerned, the intrusion 

 into our subject of philosophic speculation. Let us 

 willingly, and with our hearts, do homage to &quot; divine 

 philosophy,&quot; but let that homage be rendered outside 

 the limits of our own science. Let those who are so 

 inclined cross the frontier, and philosophise ; but to 

 me it appears to be more conducive to progress that 

 we should do our best to furnish profound philosophers 

 with such facts relating to structure and function, as 

 may serve them as aids in the investigation of those 

 deeper problems which concern man s relations to the 

 past, the present, and the unknown future. 1 



1 Nature, vol. xl. p. 525. 



