RATIONAL LIFE 281 



is our success in self-government. All this wide field 

 of effort is familar to us, much better known than 

 the latest results of research into the structure and 

 functions of brain, and of all this wide and exalted 

 activity, biologists are unable to give us even a frag 

 ment of explanation. Those who have spent a large 

 amount of energy in inveighing against introspection, 

 must resort to it, even without the consolation of an 

 alternative. How can we know, save in our own 

 consciousness? How can we regard our fellow-men 

 as rational, save by the knowledge we have in our 

 selves of the exercise belonging to rational life, and 

 of the manner in which we thereby direct our action ? 

 You believe that in society you are surrounded by 

 reasonable beings like yourself. You are, perhaps, as 

 firmly convinced of this as of anything. What is 

 your warrant for this conviction ? Simply and solely 

 this, your fellow-creatures behave as if they were 

 reasonable; the hypothesis, for it is nothing more, 

 accounts for the facts. 1 And how can we know what 

 it is to act reasonably, except by our consciousness of 

 rational reflection, and of guidance of our conduct, 

 whereby we interpret the words and deeds of our 

 fellow-men ? 



Now we have reached the standpoint, whence a full 

 view of man s nature may be obtained. In the life of 

 every member of the race there is duality in unity, 

 unity in duality. This double aspect of the life can 

 never be obscured. In the individual there is body and 

 mind ; two distinct lives, yet one life. The two lives 

 are, nevertheless, so distinct, that we, as reflective 

 beings, have no difficulty in contemplating the body 



1 Scientific Use of the Imagination, by Professor Tyndall, 1870. 



