RATIONAL LIFE 259 



periods, supposed to be those in which were the 

 beginnings of civilisation, man is regarded as if 

 through a reversed telescope. We talk of men as if 

 they were a pigmy race, lower than are found in the 

 forests of Central Africa. As if by constraint of 

 logical consistency, we begin to speak of the an 

 cestors of man as, no doubt, inferior in intellect, 

 and probably in social disposition, to the lowest exist 

 ing savages, and we are, quite logically it may be, 

 impressed with the large acquirements which have 

 been stored up throughout the long ages which have 

 elapsed since that extremely remote epoch before 

 man had arrived at the dignity of manhood. All 

 this may be not only warranted, but even necessary to 

 anthropological research ; but it is apt to carry with 

 it a logical penalty, as if we were chargeable with a 

 breach of continuity when we describe the elevations 

 of a rational life. Nevertheless we must speak of 

 what man is, a thing about which we are at least 

 more sure than we can be as to what man was. We 

 must besides pay homage, as aforetime, to the thinkers 

 of antiquity, who have impressed us all by their force 

 of intellect. At the same time, we do not wish, as if 

 under apprehension of straits into which our argu 

 ment may be brought, to hasten off to the few men of 

 special gifts, or to chosen men of varied accomplish 

 ments. We desire to consider such a man as we now 

 have wherever we meet him, humanity as it exists 

 in our own age. We seek to describe what a rational 

 life is in itself, whatever its environments, and how 

 ever chequered its course in the world. We all 

 believe that there was a time in the world s history 

 when animal life held the field. I seek now to describe 



