RATIONAL LIFE 285 



we may consider the race as a whole. We present 

 human life in no ideal colours, but, as it commonly 

 appears, its beauty soiled by contact with the earth. 

 We take man, low and high, always intelligent, always 

 moral, commonly religious; and we seek to under 

 stand his place in Nature. Taken thus, even on the 

 most commonplace levels, we do not find that any 

 adequate account of man s appearance is given by 

 reference to lower orders of life. We do not find in 

 the rudiments of organic life any trace of the 

 potentialities of rational life. We quite understand 

 how Darwin felt warranted to speak of the infinitely 

 larger power l belonging to man, in comparison with 

 that belonging to the lower animals. We rather 

 wonder at Darwin s conclusion, though we cannot 

 critically object to it, when he says : In what manner 

 the mental powers were first developed in the lowest /, 

 organisms, is as hopeless an inquiry as how life itself 

 first originated.&quot; 2 We recall, besides, that this difficulty 

 pressed so much upon Mr. Darwin s mind, as to have 

 induced him, in his earlier work, to write a statement 

 so unexpected as this, I may here premise that I 

 have nothing to do with the origin of the mental 

 powers, any more than I have with that of life itself. 3 

 He began by assuming life ; does it not seem that in 

 like manner, in order to construct a scheme of human 

 life, the mental powers must be assumed ? Stronger 

 support for the theory here maintained, could not be 

 looked for from a biologist of authority so conspicuous. 

 After such acknowledgment in both of his more 

 celebrated books, do the Avords not sound as the 



1 Descent of Man, p. 85. 2 Ibid. p. 66. 



3 Origin of Species, p. 191. 



