THE HUMAN FACTOR. 305 



man and his contemporaries. From the ape, from the horse, 

 the deer, and other living types, we trace, through fossil 

 bones, a graduation downward in rank," and backward in time, 

 to the organisms which made their advent at the beginning of 

 the Tertiary. Here is a pretty complete chain of being in 

 each case, from a primitive extiuct form, down quite to the 

 living form. But not so with man. The chain is broken 

 the links are lost. We can not explain this at present. As 

 long as the interval remains, we can not affirm from facts that 

 man is the outcome of ordinary evolution. 



Thus we learn that man's organism is bound up with the 

 history of the material world. Inorganic conditions have 

 always circumscribed his existence. He could only appear 

 when they permitted; he can only dwell where they fit his 

 nature. The inorganic matter of the world has afforded 

 material for the embodiment of his soul. The lime in his 

 bones is as old as Eozoon. Venerable old house is that which 

 he has built for his dwelling place inconceivably more ven- 

 erable than the temples reared of the stones of the old pyra- 

 mids. He is made of the same stuff as the mountains and 

 the stars. He can survey the material universe and feel that 

 he is a part of it; and that the substance of his frame dates 

 back to a burning planet, to whirling rings of vapor and 

 glowing fire-mist. With the organic history of the world he 

 stands inseparably connected. He is the outcome of all ver- 

 tebrate progress ; he was embodied in its evolution as the fruit 

 and flower in the growing stem. Man can stand up among the 

 animals and feel a kinship with all of them. He can rationally 

 sympathize with them and concern himself in their well being. 



In the survey of the plans of nature exemplified even in 

 his own being, he discovers in himself a revelation of mind. 

 Plan reveals the mind of a planner. That which rethinks 

 the thought embodied in a plan, must also be mind. Man 

 understands, to some extent, the plans embodied in the struc- 

 ture and history of the world. Man, therefore, in the study 

 of material nature, arrives at a knowledge of something which 

 is superior to matter ; he discovers spirit. 



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