CHAPTER VIII 



RATIONAL LIFE 



BY a lengthened course of investigation we have 

 traced a path through the fields of comparative 

 biology. Now at length man s place in Nature comes 

 fully into view. His is a life far in advance of all 

 that belongs to a merely animal existence; it is a 

 life separated even from that which most closely ap 

 proaches to his own. Comparative biology, however 

 valuable, is insufficient as a guide to a complete re 

 presentation of human life. Man s life is, indeed, 

 dependent on environment, as other life is ; but inde 

 pendent, as no other life can be. His is a life allied 

 with all organism by his subjection to the common 

 laws of growth and nutriment ; at the same time, he 

 moves in a rational sphere where these laws have no 

 application, and where other living beings can have 

 no companionship with him. 



My aim here will be to present, at least in outline, 

 the activities of the rational life. It forms no part of 

 my plan to give prominence to special gifts among 

 men, representative of possible attainments or accom 

 plishments, even though these have continual illustra 

 tion in society. Mr. A. Russel Wallace has done this 

 effectively by discoursing of the mathematical, the 

 musical, and the artistic faculties in man. 1 It is 



1 Darwinism, p. 464 ; v. Weismann s Essaijs, vol. ii. p. 31. 

 R 



