RATIONAL LIFE 271 



for the personal life is always in this way, even when 

 progress includes some phase of physical advance, 

 which infrequently is not included. 



If we use the language adopted under the scheme 

 of evolution, we shall see that when taken as the 

 dominant law, it is applicable exclusively to animals. 

 Organisms are acted upon by the environment, which 

 produces in them definite change. 1 We do not 

 allege that human organism is not acted upon in this 

 way. We recognise climatic influences, and physical 

 results coming from concentrated physical effort, 

 belonging to some forms of employment. Man is 

 subject to the laws of organic life in these ways, just 

 as the animals are. But when we speak of personal 

 advance, under a dominant law, we speak of progress 

 by means of observation, reflection, and growing 

 wisdom. In such a case, the words just quoted have 

 no application. Yet, it holds for all lower life, that 

 organisms are acted upon by environment, which 

 produces in them definite changes. The law of 

 individual advance is distinct in the two cases. In 

 marking this difference, we part company with all that 

 has been written as to the action of environment, and 

 as to natural selection. These have only a slight 

 bearing on the physique of our race ; they have no 

 bearing on development of personal life ; neither 

 upon acquisitions of knowledge, nor upon formation 

 of character. The rational life takes its course in 

 dependently of these, acting for itself in accordance 

 with knowledge, gaining nothing towards its develop 

 ment by being acted upon by the forces of Nature. 

 All that men have been constantly saying as to 



1 Danvinism, p. 418, 



