RATIONAL LIFE 331 



with Nature ; a moment when we shall take our first 

 glance on a destiny implied in our moral life here. 

 Faith and ignorance may then meet in undisturbed 

 companionship ; faith guiding through ignorance into 

 a larger knowledge. 



Here, on the confines of the Unseen, taking a last 

 view of rational life in Nature, we are arrested by its dis 

 tinctive characteristics, parting it from all life besides 

 which the earth contains. What has been before our 

 eyes at earlier stages of this inquiry, is recalled now, 

 as bearing witness to the grandeur of human life. 

 We have seen life multiplied lavishly, far beyond pro 

 vision for its sustenance. We have seen the struggle 

 for existence, carrying much life onwards to inevit 

 able destruction, while bearing stronger life forward 

 to higher destiny. We have seen how higher life feeds 

 on lower life, finding thus its own sustenance. But 

 in rational life, though embodied in organism, and 

 also subject to physical laws, in common with the 

 beasts of the field, we perceive a check placed on 

 destruction of life, by intervention of some higher and 

 authoritative law, saying Thou shalt not kill. Some 

 thing still more impressive appears under application 

 of this law, for men of all ranks and conditions have 

 come to recognise that the rule here, makes human 

 life sacred. So, betimes in human history, when 

 evil passion has inflicted fatal injury, death s name is 

 changed to murder; a single act of violence has 

 made a man a criminal. Is there not some vast 

 difference of nature, which stamps human life sacred, 

 as no other life is ? One other feature still is to be 

 remarked, giving additional force to the impression 

 made on us, for we see that in the form of moral 



