EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



ing, engrossed in pioneer work, accomplishes a feat 

 beyond its own calculations. Working immediately in 

 the service of commerce, and simultaneously in the 

 service of a large-hearted humanity, it leads the van of 

 human progress. After the daring and the endurance 

 of the explorer, come the best results of mechanical 

 contrivance; after these, the rivalries of civilised 

 nations ; after these, all that is best in generous feel 

 ing and purpose. All progress is thus cosmopolitan ; 

 yet is it painfully manifest, all along the way, that 

 there has been ceaseless struggle, untold suffering, 

 manifold wrongs ! 



Struggle for existence has in this way a distinct 

 meaning for each type of life. Each living creature 

 must seek supply for its own wants, and failing, must 

 suffer. Domestication of animals has tended to 

 obscure, not a little, Nature s laws, which are more 

 manifest as we look abroad on the earth, aided 

 largely by naturalists who have spent their energies 

 in discovering the rich varieties of life on the globe. 

 Entomologists and butterflies are, however, widely 

 apart, even when most closely associated. The love of 

 adventure, characteristic of the naturalists of our day, 

 testifies to the contrast between Nature in its lower 

 sense, and in its higher ; between natural selection/ 

 and Nature s higher work, when rational power is 

 moving over the face of the earth. Rational life makes 

 a new epoch in the history of environment. Progress 

 has^ a new history in presence of a new agency. 

 Rational life in itself, and by itself, discloses a poten 

 tiality previously inoperative. All Nature becomes 

 a_ larger thing, when Nature &quot;Sdudes humanity. 

 For long ages, this greater amplitude of being has 



