308 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



phases of the speciality of a rational life. It is, indeed, 

 an idle dream to suppose that human liberty can 

 escape the dominion of physical law. It is, on the 

 other hand, an animating conclusion from scientific 

 inductions, that rational control of physical impulses 

 will bring large physical gain. The explanation is 

 that the life, rational and animal, is one; that the laws 

 of organism are fixed; and that the government of 

 reason, in accordance with these known laws of 

 health, is matter of experience. 



The measurement of parental responsibility is like 

 wise found in the relations of rationality to ascertained 

 hereditary conditions. Laws of organic descent are 

 fixed ; the rational agent can understand them, and 

 can regulate his conduct accordingly. The full 

 meaning of this, needs to be more exactly expressed, 

 and more widely understood. Only in this way, can 

 we escape dangers of degeneration, appreciating and 

 profiting by the warnings of the Faculty. Only by 

 recognising, in every department of activity, the rela 

 tion of rational guidance of conduct to the fixed law 

 of physical existence, can man s place in Nature 

 have appreciation, in a manner at once scientific and 

 practical. 



The limits of personal responsibility in relation to 

 the fixedness of physical law may first engage attention. 

 The contrast between the physical life and the rational, 

 will thus appear more fully, and also the unity of the 

 two forms of existence in one life. The sharpness of 

 the distinction is readily marked. It is conspicuous 

 in the contrast between the risk to which all life is 

 exposed : and the precautions voluntarily taken for its 

 preservation. This contrast places well within ordinary 



