286 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



expression of settled conviction, stronger even than 

 the attractions of a favourite hypothesis ? 



The characteristics of the rational life are familiar 

 to us all. They do not need to be described in detail, 

 so well are they known. The fact constitutes con 

 siderable part of the difficulty experienced in con 

 structing such an argument as the present. Still, 

 there is for us this advantage, that the life to be 

 described is our own, and that of our fellows around. 

 It is human life as it appears everywhere in society. 

 In man, the spirit of observation is perpetually active. 

 Nature is man s first and most constant teacher. 

 These eyes, roaming hither and thither, are in the 

 service of a mind open to the influences of Nature s 

 beauty and grandeur. In all diversity of situation, of 

 social life, and of daily occupation, man lives in 

 constant converse with his fellows. Whatever the 

 subjects of talk, memory s stores are constantly being 

 utilised. Man s present is ever full of recollections, 

 enabling him to live in the heart of past achievements. 

 Man, from the activity of his mental powers, cannot 

 avoid reflection ; past impressions are incessantly and 

 clearly passing through his mind. 1 In his daily 

 activity, his classification of objects is a necessity of 

 his conversation, as he talks of trees and horses, of glen 

 and mountain, of men and communities. Still further 

 do we penetrate into the characteristics of a rational 

 life, when we mark how essentially it is a self-directing 

 moral life, perpetually making account of things right 

 and wrong. A moral being is one who is capable of 

 comparing his past and future actions or motives, and 

 of approving or disapproving of them. 2 What other 

 1 Darwin s Descent of Man, p. 112. Ibid. p. 111. 



