CHAPTER II. 



ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 



1. WE now approach the central and most important 

 question of all What is man himself? a question in 

 appearance sufficiently simple, and one, moreover, dis- 

 cussed from the dawn of speculation, but which, never- 

 theless, science holds to have been only rightly conceived 

 and approached, and only truly answered in all its 

 fulness and significance, for the first time in our day 

 and generation. 



The inquiry concerning the nature of man is evidently 

 of fundamental importance, as all moralists, from the 

 revival of independent moral speculation under Hobbes, 

 two centuries ago, up to our own days, have fully per- 

 ceived. On the answer to the question, What is man ? 

 clearly depends the answer to the three great questions 

 of Kant, What can we know ? What should we do ? 

 What may we hope? Nay, even the 'further question, 

 What can we do ? the great question of moral freedom, 

 the ancient and still-agitated question whether our actions 

 are the product of a secret material mechanism which 

 ultimately sways our wills, or whether and how far man 

 is the master of destiny and the ruler of circumstance, 

 is evidently involved in the fundamental and all-com- 

 prehending one, What is man himself? 



