264 EVOLUTION AND MAN*S PLACE IN NATURE 



flection, favours such thought. But the truly striking 

 thing is, the fact that the rational life enters into and 

 regulates the physical life. There is no exception to 

 this rule under the normal conditions of human life ; 

 there is no illustration of it in any other phase of life. 

 The physical nature of man is subject to physical 

 law, just as every organism is ; but, in his case, rational 

 power takes possession of the physical, turning it to 

 use as its own instrument. This appears in all our 

 ordinary occupations. It is involved in every case in 

 which our Will is the source of physical activity, 

 working out a rational purpose previously formed in 

 our own consciousness. Pass away from his work, 

 whatever it be, to consider the man s life, as a whole, 

 and it is a rational life, even if judged only by 

 physical manifestations; yea, and this is still more 

 striking, a rational life, even when most irrational. 

 Indeed, that which we describe as irrational is so 

 described, only as belonging to a rational life, Avhich 

 should have been better ordered, a life which shows 

 its rationality, even in its irrationality. Take it at 

 its best, and at its worst, and it becomes clear that 

 this physical life is quite different from the physical 

 life of all the orders enumerated in comparative 

 biology. The difference is that a rational life holds 

 possession. The animal cannot be irrational, simply 

 because it is not rational. On this ground, reflection 

 belongs only to man. There is nothing either new or 

 strange in his physical life itself. It is a more won 

 derful organism than any other, more complicated 

 in differentiation, more intricate in co-ordination, but 

 the same in model of structure, and function, as all 

 organism, high and low. Everything possible can be 



