RATIONAL LIFE 261 



work of brain, nerve, and muscle. This applies to all 

 animal life, including that of man. Such life as this 

 is dependent for its continuance on environment. 

 Nutriment is the condition of subsistence. Out of 

 this, emerges the struggle for existence/ and out of 

 this, survival of the fittest, 1 and from this, by laws of 

 heredity, transmission of acquired characters ; and out 

 of this, origin of species. We are familiar with this 

 whole set of combinations; inductions which have 

 been gained for us by concentrated scientific research. 

 It is now possible to lift our heads from it all, in 

 order to consider how it bears on the general order of 

 things in the midst of which we find ourselves. 



o 



The first perplexing consideration, threatening to 

 bewilder for a time, is the fact that this boundary 

 line includes humanity with animality. The re 

 presentation is not in any sense a new one. We 

 had always said that man is an animal ; we had often 

 said, rather confusedly it is true, mixing up in a single 

 formula things that differ, man is a rational animal. 

 The novelty of the situation lies in this, that man s 

 alliance with all animal life has been established with 

 a clearness and fulness of representation never before 

 possible in the history of the world. The long hidden 

 secrets of nature are disclosed, and behold ! man has 

 his heritage among the beasts of the field. The dis 

 covery is, indeed, a large one; the demonstration 

 has been worked out in minute detail, till no place is 

 left for doubt. However tedious may be the induc 

 tions bringing us to new truth, we are wonderfully swift 

 in our deductions. The conclusion was suddenly 

 drawn, as if it were an intuition of science, that man 

 had been dethroned, dragged from the place of honour. 



