RATIONAL LIFE 339 



the investigations now closed, these two orders of 

 being, the one organic, the other spiritual, appear in 

 vivid contrast. The striking fact is, that man belongs 

 to both. He has his place in a physical system, within 

 which all is subject to decay and death; he has his 

 place in a spiritual system, within which is no trace of 

 death, but promise of continuity beyond the present 

 state, where there may well be a community of 

 spiritual existence. No fact in Nature is fraught 

 with deeper meaning than this two-sided fact of the 

 extreme physical similarity, and enormous psychical 

 divergence, between Man and the group of animals 1 

 nearest to him in the history of organic life. When 

 this contrast is steadily observed, we find logical 

 support for the representation of a Spiritual Kingdom, 

 having a perpetuity of which Nature itself offers no 

 promise. 



Along with this enormous psychical divergence 

 of human life from all life besides, we must include 

 the evidence in Natural History for gradation in the 

 ascent of being. This is such that the appearance 

 of mental life is not per saltum, but by transition, 

 in harmony with the analogies familiar in Nature! 

 Man does not look upon Nature as if it were merely a 

 realm of material existence, governed by mechanical 

 force, to which he is alien. He does not move among 

 the varied forms of animal life, as a stranger, or as an 

 adversary, but as one allied to all that breathes and 

 moves. He does not exercise lordship over all, 

 without finding near him, in close alliance with him 

 higher orders of life, possessing a humbler type of mind, 

 through which it is possible for him to communicate 



1 Fiske s Destiny of Man, p. 29. 



