200 The Bible of Nature 



through perception or through the spectacles of 

 Natural Science. But the whole hierarchy of the 

 sciences speaks of another reality which cannot be 

 sense-perceived, and even with scientific spectacles 

 we cannot but be aware of the fundamental mys- 

 teriousness of Nature, though we may not 

 therewith be able to discern that ''higher nature 

 in nature which makes us men." Naturalism de- 

 nies any real causality to the personal agent and 

 makes consciousness no more than inactive control. 

 But it is difficult to doubt the genuine conscious 

 activity of the subject. It seems the surest of all 

 scientific facts. Ideas have hands and feet, as 

 Hegel said, and move the world. One may ask, 

 indeed, whether the existence of a material world 

 per se — a system of unconscious forces — a self- 

 acting machine — is a thinkable idea at all. 



Human Conduct and Animal Behaviour. — In the 

 ordinary man's daily activity we can readily dis- 

 tinguish various grades. There is usually a good 

 deal of habitual routine, the determination of 

 which does not rise to the focus of consciousness 

 at all. Lower than this is some instinctive be- 

 haviour, and there are reflex activities often of con- 

 siderable complexity. On the other hand, the 

 man often passes beyond habitual routine to do 

 something which is positively intelligent. Now 

 and again we must describe his activity as rational 

 conduct. It almost goes without saying that the 



