THE HUMAN TYPE. 289 



and is an essential attribute of spirit, since the very idea 

 of spirit supposes self-action. Feuchtersleben judiciously 

 distinguishes between the essential freedom of the spirit 

 and the freedom of the spirit linked to the body. He 

 shows that freedom may, first, limit itself, so far as the 

 spirit makes itself the slave of sin or error; second, it may 

 be limited by physical laws ; third, it may be limited by 

 organization. As to the first, the free man is good and 

 wise ; as to the second, powerful; as to the third, healthy. 



1 8. This brief examination of human endowments 

 shows as great a difference between men and brutes as 

 exists between animals and vegetables, or between vege- 

 tables and the mineral world. It is considered by many 

 that each department of nature becomes higher through 

 the addition of something which the next below it did 

 not possess, and as the differences of the animal and 

 vegetable world form successive additions to a common 

 original plan or system of organization, we find fore- 

 shadowings or prophecies of the characteristics of higher 

 forms. Thus the regularity of the crystal suggests to 

 the imagination the organization of the plant, and the 

 motions of plants foreshadow the nervous system. Thus, 

 too, the higher animals have vague and indistinct analo- 

 gies of the vast endowments of man. 



19. The unity of man was generally conceded by the 

 early naturalists, but has been largely debated in recent 

 times. Agassiz himself held to different creations, al- 

 though believing they were a unit as to intellectual and 

 moral nature. The discussion continued, until a few 

 years ago it appeared to be the settled creed of men of 



"advanced" views to deny man's unity. Yet one point 

 25 



