258 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



obviously reasonable that such selection of faculties 

 should be made; for by reference to these a strong 

 argument can be adduced for the distinctiveness of 

 human intelligence. But it is more in accordance 

 with the plan here followed, that the common charac 

 teristics of human life should be taken as repre 

 senting most naturally and adequately the comparative 

 position of man. Accordingly, I here regard man as 

 man, without being specially concerned with higher 

 gifts and accomplishments in possession of the few. 



A self-regulated life is a unique representation. This 

 is characteristic of all men alike. We find it in rich 

 and poor, in cultured and illiterate, in savage and 

 civilised. The distance which separates the extremes 

 of civilisation is a vastly extended one ; innumerable 

 varieties are to be found between ; but all men share 

 in rational self-direction as their birthright. However 

 low he be in the scale of civilisation, a man cannot be 

 treated as if he were irrational, or incapable of being 

 the coadjutor of his fellow-man, whose accomplish 

 ments he does not share. To understand the place of 

 man in Nature, we must observe how truly men move 

 on the same elevation, possessing common powers of 

 self-direction, all claiming common rights, all ad 

 mitting common obligations. 



There are many disadvantages to the inquiry as to 

 man s place in the world s history, from considering 

 closely and continuously his life in view of its affinities 

 with the characteristics of animal intelligence. Of 

 necessity, in such a case, we turn attention away from 

 the grander features of human life, found even in the 

 most ordinary, or lowly, or even dishonourable, of 

 human lives. Contemplated at the distance of remote 



