MAN IN NATURE 483 



orderly system of things in time and space, and this not invari- 

 able, but in a state of constant movement and progress, whereby 

 it is always becoming something different from what it was. 

 Now man is placed in the midst of this orderly, law- regulated 

 yet ever progressive system, and is himself a part of it ; and if 

 we can understand his real relations to its other parts, we shall 

 have made some approximation to a true philosophy. The 

 subject has been often discussed, but is perhaps not yet quite 

 exhausted. 1 



Regarding man as a part of nature, we must hold to his 

 entering into the grand unity of the natural system, and must 

 not set up imaginary antagonisms between man and nature as 

 if he were outside of it. An instance of this appears in Tyn- 

 dall's celebrated Belfast address, where he says, in explanation 

 of the errors of certain of the older philosophers, that " the ex- 

 periences which formed the weft and woof of their theories were 

 chosen not from the study of nature, but from that which lay 

 much nearer to them the observation of Man ": a statement 

 this which would make man a supernatural, or at least a preter- 

 natural being. Again, it does not follow, because man is a part 

 of nature, that he must be precisely on a level with its other 

 parts. There are in nature many planes of existence, and man 

 is no doubt on one of its higher planes, and possesses distin- 

 guishing powers and properties of his own. Nature, like a per- 

 fect organism, is not all eye or all hand, but includes various 

 organs, and so far as we see it in our planet, man is its head, 

 though we can easily conceive that there may be higher beings 

 in other parts of the universe beyond our ken. 



The view which we may take of man's position relatively to 

 the beings which are nearest to him, namely, the lower animals, 

 will depend on our point of sight whether that of mere anatomy 



1 " Man's Place in Nature," Princeton Review, November, 1878. "The 

 Unity of Nature," by the Duke of Argyll, 1884, may be considered as sug- 

 gestive of the thoughts of this chapter. 



