of man's present actual attainments; in his possibilities he has a larger faith than that of the disbeliever in evolution. In intelligence and thought, in will power and freedom of choice, in one word, in all that makes up character and personality, man is immeasurably superior to the animal. These powers raise him to a new plane of being, give him an indefinitely higher and broader life, and his appearance marks a new era. He alone is a moral, responsible being, to a certain extent the former of his own destiny and recorder of his doom, if he fails. This gives to all his actions a peculiar stamp of a dignity only his. What he is and is to be we must attempt to trace in another lecture. But to one or two characteristic results of his progress we must call attention here.

The principal subject of man's study is not so much the things which surround him as his relation to them and theirs to each other. His environment has become really one, not so much one of tangible and visible objects as of invisible relations. And these will demand endless investigation. The more he studies them the more wonderful do they become. The vein broadens and grows indefinitely richer the deeper he searches into it. We find thus the purpose of the intellect; it is to study environment.

And now a little about motives. The animal begins with appetite, and some animals and men never get any farther. And yet how easily this appetite for food is satiated! We all remember our experiences as children around the Thanksgiving or Christmas table. What a disappointment it was to us to find how soon our appetite had forsaken us, and that we had lost the power of enjoying the delicacies which we had most

anticipated. And over-indulgence often brought sad results and was followed by a period of penitential fasting. And the appetites for sense gratification must always lead to this result. They not only crave things which "perish with the using;" temporarily at least, often permanently, the appetite itself perishes with the gratification.

But what of the appetite, if you will pardon the expression, for truth and right? All attainment only strengthens it; and, instead of enslaving, it makes men ever more free. And yet what a power there is in the appetite for truth and righteousness? In obedience to it man gives his body to be burned, or pours out his life-blood drop by drop for its attainment, and rejoices in the sacrifice. There are victims to appetite: there are only martyrs to truth. This soul hunger for truth and right, growing more intense as the soul is filled with the object of desire, is the only one capable of indefinite development and dominance of the will. This must be and is the mental goal of animal development, if man has a future corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise no delectable mountains or golden city.

And now in closing let me call your attention to one thought of practical vital importance.

According to the theory which we have agreed to adopt, higher species have arisen through a process of natural selection, those species surviving which are

best conformed to their environment. And this applies to man as well as to lower animals. All knowledge is in man, therefore, primarily, a means by which he may conform to environment, survive, and progress. But conformity includes more than mere knowledge of environment. A man might have all knowledge, and yet refuse to conform; and then his knowledge could not save him from destruction. For conformity alone gives survival. Conformity in man requires an effort of the will. It is intelligent, but it is also voluntary action. And knowledge is a necessary means of conformity because through it we see how we may conform, and because it furnishes the motives which stimulate the will to the necessary effort.

Now, that faculty of the intellect which is dominant in man, and which has raised him immeasurably above the animal, and made him man, is the rational intelligence. If there is any such thing as a law of history or as continuity in evolution, man's future progress must depend upon his clearer vision and recognition of the perceptions of this faculty. Through it man perceives beauty, truth, and goodness, and attains knowledge of himself as a person and moral agent, and recognizes his rights and duties. Of all this the animal is and remains unconscious; indeed he is not yet a moral being and person in any proper sense of the word.

Inasmuch as the rational perception is the dominant faculty in man, it must perceive the lines along which he is to conform. Truth, right, and duty must be his watchwords. These are to be the rules and motives of all his actions. He cannot live for the body, but for something higher, the mind. This was proven before

man appeared on the globe. He is to be a mental, intelligent being. But he is not to be governed by appetite or mere prudential considerations. These are animal, not human motives. These are not to be disregarded any more than digestion can be safely disregarded by man. But they are not to be his chief motives. He must subordinate these to the higher motives furnished by right and duty. Man is not merely a mental but a moral being. If he sinks below this plane of life he is not following the path marked out for him in all his past development. In order to progress, the higher vertebrate had to subordinate everything to mental development. In order to become man it had to develop the rational intelligence. In order to become higher man, present man must subordinate everything to moral development. This is the great law of animal and human development clearly revealed in the sequence of physical and mental functions.

Must man be a religious being also? This question we must try to answer in a future lecture.

CHAPTER VI

NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT

I HAVE attempted to show that animal development has not been an aimless drifting. Functions developed and organs arose and were perfected in a certain order. First the purely vegetative organs appeared, and the animal lived for digestion and reproduction; then came muscle and it brought with it nerve. But these were not enough; the brain had all the time been gradually improving, and now it becomes the dominant function to which all others are subordinated. The experiment was fairly tried. Mere digestion and reproduction are carried to about the highest perfection which can be expected of them in worms and mollusks. The bird tried what could be done with digestion ministering to locomotion guided by the very keenest senseorgans and controlled by no mean brain. Even this experiment was not a success. But one organ remained, the brain, and on its mental possibilities depend the future of the animal kingdom. Vegetative organs and muscle have been tried and found wanting.'

We have followed hastily the development of mind. The mind began its career as the servant of digestion, recognizing and aiding to attain food. Action is at first mainly reflex. But conscious perception plays an ever more important part. The animal is at first guided by natural selection through the survival of 1 See chart, p. 310.