MAN IN NATURE.

Few words are used among us more loosely than "nature." Sometimes it stands for the material universe as a whole. Sometimes it is personified as a sort of goddess, working her own sweet will with material things. Sometimes it expresses the forces which act on matter, and again it stands for material things themselves. It is spoken of as subject to law, but just as often natural law is referred to in terms which imply that nature itself is the lawgiver. It is supposed to be opposed to the equally vague term "supernatural"; but this term is used not merely to denote things above and beyond nature, if there are such, but certain opinions held respecting natural things. On the other hand, the natural is contrasted with the artificial, though this is always the outcome of natural powers, and is certainly not supernatural. Again, it is applied to the inherent properties of beings for which we are unable to account, and which we are content to say constitute their nature. We cannot look into the works of any of the more speculative writers of the day without meeting with all these uses of the word, and have to be constantly on our guard lest by a change of its meaning we shall be led to assent to some proposition altogether unfounded.

For illustrations of this convenient though dangerous ambiguity, I may turn at random to almost any page in Darwin's celebrated work on the "Origin of Species." In the beginning of Chapter III. he speaks of animals "in a state of nature" that is, not in a domesticated or artificial condition, so that here nature is opposed to the devices of man. Then he speaks of species as "arising in nature," that is, spontaneously produced in the midst of certain external conditions or environment outside of the organic world. A little farther on he speaks of useful varieties as given to man by "the hand of Nature," which here becomes an imaginary person; and it is worthy of notice that in this place the printer or proof-reader has given the word an initial capital, as if a proper name. In the next section he speaks of the "works of Nature" as superior to those of art. Here the word is not only opposed to the artificial, but seems to imply some power above material things and comparable with or excelling the contriving intelligence of man. I do not mean by these examples to imply that Darwin is in this respect more inaccurate than other writers. On the contrary, he is greatly surpassed by many of his contemporaries in the varied and fantastic uses of this versatile word. An illustration which occurs to me here, as at once amusing and instructive, is an expression used by Romanes, one of the cleverest of the followers of the great evolutionist, and which appears to him to give a satisfactory explanation of the mystery of elevation in nature. He says, "Nature selects the best individuals out of each generation to live." Here nature must be an intelligent agent, or the statement is simply nonsensical. The same alternative applies to much of the use of the favourite term "natural selection." In short, those who use such modes of expression would be more consistent if they were at once to come back to the definition of Seneca, that nature is "a certain divine purpose manifested in the world."

The derivation of the word gives us the idea of something produced or becoming, and it is curious that the Greek physis, though etymologically distinct, conveys the same meaning—a coincidence which may perhaps lead us to a safe and serviceable definition. Nature, rightly understood, is, in short, an orderly system of things in time and space, and this not invariable, but in a state of constant movement and progress, whereby it is always becoming something different from what it was. Now man is placed in the midst of this orderly, law-regulated yet ever progressive system, and is himself a part of it; and if we can understand his real relations to its other parts, we shall have made some approximation to a true philosophy. The subject has been often discussed, but is perhaps not yet quite exhausted.[212]

Regarding man as a part of nature, we must hold to his entering into the grand unity of the natural system, and must not set up imaginary antagonisms between man and nature as if he were outside of it. An instance of this appears in Tyndall's celebrated Belfast address, where he says, in explanation of the errors of certain of the older philosophers, that "the experiences which formed the weft and woof of their theories were chosen not from the study of nature, but from that which lay much nearer to them—the observation of Man": a statement this which would make man a supernatural, or at least a preternatural being. Again, it does not follow, because man is a part of nature, that he must be precisely on a level with its other parts. There are in nature many planes of existence, and man is no doubt on one of its higher planes, and possesses distinguishing powers and properties of his own. Nature, like a perfect organism, is not all eye or all hand, but includes various organs, and so far as we see it in our planet, man is its head, though we can easily conceive that there may be higher beings in other parts of the universe beyond our ken.

The view which we may take of man's position relatively to the beings which are nearest to him, namely, the lower animals, will depend on our point of sight—whether that of mere anatomy and physiology, or that of psychology and pneumatology as well. This distinction is the more important, since, under the somewhat delusive term "biology," it has been customary to mix up all these considerations, while, on the other hand, those anatomists who regard all the functions of organic beings as merely mechanical and physical, do not scruple to employ this term biology for their science, though on their hypothesis there can be no such thing as life, and consequently the use of the word by them must be either superstitious or hypocritical.

Anatomically considered, man is an animal of the class Mammalia. In that class, notwithstanding the heroic efforts of some modern detractors from his dignity to place him with the monkeys in the order Primates, he undoubtedly belongs to a distinct order. I have elsewhere argued that, if he were an extinct animal, the study of the bones of his hand, or of his head, would suffice to convince any competent palÆontologist that he represents a distinct order, as far apart from the highest apes as they are from the carnivora. That he belongs to a distinct family no anatomist denies, and the same unanimity of course obtains as to his generic and specific distinctness. On the other hand, no zoological systematist now doubts that all the races of men are specifically identical. Thus we have the anatomical position of man firmly fixed in the system of nature, and he must be content to acknowledge his kinship not only with the higher animals nearest to him, but with the humblest animalcule. With all he shares a common material and many common features of structure.

When we ascend to the somewhat higher plane of physiology we find in a general way the same relationship to animals. Of the four grand leading functions of the animal, nutrition, reproduction, voluntary motion, and sensation, all are performed by man as by other animals. Here, however, there are some marked divergences connected with special anatomical structures, on the one hand, and with his higher endowments on the other. With regard to food, for example, man might be supposed to be limited by his masticatory and digestive apparatus to succulent vegetable substances. But by virtue of his inventive faculties he is practically unlimited, being able by artificial processes to adapt the whole range of vegetable and animal food substances to his use. He is very poorly furnished with natural tools to aid in procuring food, as claws, tusks, etc., but by invented implements he can practically surpass all other creatures. The long time of helplessness in infancy, while it is necessary for the development of his powers, is a practical disadvantage which leads to many social arrangements and contrivances specially characteristic of man. Man's sensory powers, while inferior in range to those of many other animals, are remarkable for balance and completeness, leading to perceptions of differences in colours, sounds, etc., which lie at the foundation of art. The specialization of the hand again connects itself with contrivances which render an animal naturally defenceless the most formidable of all, and an animal naturally gifted with indifferent locomotive powers able to outstrip all others in speed and range of locomotion. Thus the physiological endowments of man, while common to him with other animals, and in some respects inferior to theirs, present in combination with his higher powers points of difference which lead to the most special and unexpected results.

In his psychical relations, using this term in its narrower sense, we may see still greater divergencies from the line of the lower animals. These may no doubt be connected with his greater volume of brain; but recent researches seem to show that brain has more to do with motory and sensory powers than with those that are intellectual, and thus, that a larger brain is only indirectly connected with higher mental manifestations. Even in the lower animals it is clear that the ferocity of the tiger, the constructive instinct of the beaver, and the sagacity of the elephant depend on psychical powers which are beyond the reach of the anatomist's knife, and this is still more markedly the case in man. Following in part the ingenious analysis of Mivart, we may regard the psychical powers of man as reflex, instinctive, emotional, and intellectual; and in each of these aspects we shall find points of resemblance to other animals, and of divergence from them. In regard to reflex actions, or those which are merely automatic, inasmuch as they are intended to provide for certain important functions without thought or volition, their development is naturally in the inverse ratio of psychical elevation, and man is consequently, in this respect, in no way superior to lower animals. The same may be said with reference to instinctive powers, which provide often for complex actions in a spontaneous and unreasoning manner. In these also man is rather deficient than otherwise; and since, from their nature, they limit their possessors to narrow ranges of activity, and fix them within a definite scope of experience and efficiency, they would be incompatible with those higher and more versatile inventive powers which man possesses. The comb-building instinct of the bee, the nest-weaving instinct of the bird, are fixed and invariable things, obviously incompatible with the varied contrivance of man; and while instinct is perfect within its narrow range, it cannot rise beyond this into the sphere of unlimited thought and contrivance. Higher than mere instinct are the powers of imagination, memory, and association, and here man at once steps beyond his animal associates, and develops these in such a variety of ways, that even the rudest tribes of men, who often appear to trust more to these endowments than to higher powers, rise into a plane immeasurably above that of the highest and most intelligent brutes, and toward which they are unable, except to a very limited degree, to raise those of the more domesticable animals which they endeavour to train into companionship with themselves. It is, however, in these domesticated animals that we find the highest degree of approximation to ourselves in emotional development, and this is perhaps one of the points that fits them for such human association. In approaching the higher psychical endowments, the affinity of man and the brute appears to diminish and at length to cease, and it is left to him alone to rise into the domain of the rational and ethical.

Those supreme endowments of man we may, following the nomenclature of ancient philosophy and of our Sacred Scriptures, call "pneumatical" or spiritual. They consist of consciousness, reason, and moral volition. That man possesses these powers every one knows; that they exist or can be developed in lower animals no one has succeeded in proving. Here, at length, we have a severance between man and material nature. Yet it does not divorce him from the unity of nature, except on the principles of atheism. For if it separates him from animals, it allies him with the Power who made and planned the animals. To the naturalist the fact that such capacities exist in a being who in his anatomical structure so closely resembles the lower animals, constitutes an evidence of the independent existence of those powers and of their spiritual character and relation to a higher power which, I think, no metaphysical reasoning or materialistic scepticism will suffice to invalidate. It would be presumption, however, from the standpoint of the naturalist to discuss at length the powers of man's spiritual being. I may refer merely to a few points which illustrate at once his connection with other creatures, and his superiority to them as a higher member of nature.

And, first, we may notice those axiomatic beliefs which lie at the foundation of human reasoning, and which, while apparently in harmony with nature, do not admit of verification except by an experience impossible to finite beings. Whether these are ultimate truths, or merely results of the constitution bestowed on us, or effects of the direct action of the creative mind on ours, they are to us like the instincts of animals infallible and unchanging. Yet, just as the instincts of animals unfailingly connect them with their surroundings, our intuitive beliefs fit us for understanding nature and for existing in it as our environment. These beliefs also serve to connect man with his fellow man, and in this aspect we may associate with them those universal ideas of right and wrong, of immortality, and of powers above ourselves, which pervade humanity.

Another phase of this spiritual constitution is illustrated by the ways in which man, starting from powers and contrivances common to him and animals, develops them into new and higher uses and results. This is markedly seen in the gift of speech. Man, like other animals, has certain natural utterances expressive of emotions or feelings. He can also, like some of them, imitate the sounds produced by animate or inanimate objects; while the constitution of his brain and vocal organs gives him special advantages for articulate utterance. But when he develops these gifts into a system of speech expressing not mere sounds occurring in nature, but by association and analogy with these, properties and relations of objects and general and abstract ideas, he rises into the higher sphere of the spiritual. He thus elevates a power of utterance common to him with animals to a higher plane, and connecting it with his capacity for understanding nature and arriving at general truths, asserts his kinship to the great creative mind, and furnishes a link of connection between the material universe and the spiritual Creator.

The manner of existence of man in nature is as well illustrated by his arts and inventions as by anything else; and these serve also to enlighten us as to the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Naturalists often represent man as dependent on nature for the first hints of his useful arts. There are in animal nature tailors, weavers, masons, potters, carpenters, miners, and sailors, independently of man, and many of the tools, implements, and machines which he is said to have invented were perfected in the structures of lower animals long before he came into existence. In all these things man has been an assiduous learner from nature, though in some of them, as for example in the art of aËrial navigation, he has striven in vain to imitate the powers possessed by other animals. But it may well be doubted whether man is in this respect so much an imitator as has been supposed, and whether the resemblance of his plans to those previously realized in nature does not depend on that general fitness of things which suggests to rational minds similar means to secure similar ends. But in saying this we in effect say that man is not only a part of nature, but that his mind is in harmony with the plans of nature, or, in other words, with the methods of the creative mind. Man is also curiously in harmony with external nature in the combination in his works of the ideas of plan and adaptation, of ornament and use. In architecture, for example, devising certain styles or orders, and these for the most part based on imitations of natural things; he adapts these to his ends, just as in nature types of structure are adapted to a great variety of uses, and he strives to combine, as in nature, perfect adaptation to use with conformity to type or style. So, in his attempts at ornament he copies natural forms, and uses these forms to decorate or conceal parts intended to serve essential purposes in the structure. This is at least the case in the purer styles of construction. It is in the more debased styles that arches, columns, triglyphs, or buttresses are placed where they can serve no useful purpose, and become mere excrescences. But in this case the abnormality resulting breeds in the beholder an unpleasing mental confusion, and causes him, even when he is unable to trace his feelings to their source, to be dissatisfied with the result. Thus man is in harmony with that arrangement of nature which causes every ornamental part to serve some use, and which unites adaptation with plan.

The following of nature must also form the basis of those fine arts which are not necessarily connected with any utility, and in man's pursuit of art of this kind we see one of the most recondite and at first sight inexplicable of his correspondences with the other parts of nature; for there is no other creature that pursues art for its own sake. Modern archÆological discovery has shown that the art of sculpture began with the oldest known races of man, and that they succeeded in producing very accurate imitations of natural objects. But from this primitive starting-point two ways diverge. One leads to the conventional and the grotesque, and this course has been followed by many semi-civilized nations. Another leads to accurate imitation of nature, along with new combinations arising from the play of intellect and imagination. Let us look for a moment at the actual result of the development of these diverse styles of art, and at their effect on the culture of humanity as existing in nature. We may imagine a people who have wholly discarded nature in their art, and have devoted themselves to the monstrous and the grotesque. Such a people, so far as art is concerned, separates itself widely from nature and from the mind of the Creator, and its taste and possibly its morals sink to the level of the monsters it produces. Again, we may imagine a people in all respects following nature in a literal and servile manner. Such a people would probably attain to but a very moderate amount of culture, but having a good foundation, it might ultimately build up higher things. Lastly, we may fancy a people who, like the old Greeks, strove to add to the copying of nature a higher and ideal beauty by combining in one the best features of many natural objects, or devising new combinations not found in nature itself. In the first of these conditions of art we have a falling away from or caricaturing of the beauty of nature. In the second we have merely a pupilage to nature. In the third we find man aiming to be himself a creator, but basing his creations on what nature has given him. Thus all art worthy of the name is really a development of nature. It is true the eccentricities of art and fashion are so erratic that they may often seem to have no law. Yet they are all under the rule of nature; and hence even uninstructed common sense, unless dulled by long familiarity, detects in some degree their incongruity, and though it may be amused for a time, at length becomes wearied with the mental irritation and nervous disquiet which they produce.

I may be permitted to add that all this applies with still greater force to systems of science and philosophy. Ultimately these must be all tested by the verities of nature to which man necessarily submits his intellect, and he who builds for aye must build on the solid ground of nature. The natural environment presents itself in this connection as an educator of man. From the moment when infancy begins to exercise its senses on the objects around, this education begins training the powers of observation and comparison, cultivating the conception of the grand and beautiful, leading to analysis and abstract and general ideas. Left to itself, it is true this natural education extends but a little way, and ordinarily it becomes obscured or crushed by the demands of a hard utility, or by an artificial literary culture, or by the habitude of monstrosity and unfitness in art. Yet, when rightly directed, it is capable of becoming an instrument of the highest culture, intellectual, Æsthetic, and even moral. A rational system of education would follow nature in the education of the young, and drop much that is arbitrary and artificial. Here I would merely remark, that when we find that the accurate and systematic study of nature trains most effectually some of the more practical powers of mind, and leads to the highest development of taste for beauty in art, we see in this relation the unity of man and nature, and the unity of both with something higher than either.

It may, however, occur to us here, that when we consider man as an improver and innovator in the world, there is much that suggests a contrariety between him and nature, and that, instead of being the pupil of his environment, he becomes its tyrant. In this aspect man, and especially civilized man, appears as the enemy of wild nature, so that in those districts which he has most fully subdued, many animals and plants have been exterminated, and nearly the whole surface has come under his processes of culture, and has lost the characteristics which belonged to it in its primitive state. Nay more, we find that by certain kinds of so called culture man tends to exhaust and impoverish the soil, so that it ceases to minister to his comfortable support, and becomes a desert. Vast regions of the earth are in this impoverished condition, and the westward march of exhaustion warns us that the time may come when even in comparatively new countries, like America, the land will cease to be able to sustain its inhabitants. Behind this stands a still farther and portentous possibility. The resources of chemistry are now being taxed to the utmost to discover methods by which the materials of human food may be produced synthetically, and we may possibly, at some future time, find that albumen and starch may be manufactured cheaply from their elements by artificial processes. Such a discovery might render man independent of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Agriculture might become an unnecessary and unprofitable art. A time might come when it would no longer be possible to find on earth a green field, or a wild animal; and when the whole earth would be one great factory, in which toiling millions were producing all the materials of food, clothing, and shelter. Such a world may never exist, but its possible existence may be imagined, and its contemplation brings vividly before us the vast powers inherent in man as a subverter of the ordinary course of nature. Yet even this ultimate annulling of wild nature would be brought about not by anything preternatural in man, but simply by his placing himself in alliance with certain natural powers and agencies, and by their means attaining dominion over the rest.

Here there rises before us a spectre which science and philosophy appear afraid to face, and which asks the dread question,—What is the cause of the apparent abnormality in the relations of man and nature? In attempting to solve this question, we must admit that the position of man, even here, is not without natural analogies. The stronger preys upon the weaker, the lower form gives place to the higher, and in the progress of geological time old species have died out in favour of newer, and old forms of life have been exterminated by later successors. Man, as the newest and highest of all, has thus the natural right to subdue and rule the world. Yet there can be little doubt that he uses this right unwisely and cruelly, and these terms themselves explain why he does so, because they imply freedom of will. Given a system of nature destitute of any being higher than the instinctive animal, and introduce into it a free rational agent, and you have at once an element of instability. So long as his free thought and purpose continue in harmony with the arrangements of his environment, so long all will be harmonious; but the very hypothesis of freedom implies that he can act otherwise, and so perfect is the equilibrium of existing things, that one wrong or unwise action may unsettle the nice balance, and set in operation trains of causes and effects producing continued and ever-increasing disturbance. Thus the most primitive state of man, though destitute of all mechanical inventions, may have been better in relation to the other parts of nature than any that he has subsequently attained to. His "many inventions" have injured him in his natural relations. This "fall of man" we know as a matter of observation and experience has actually occurred, and it can be retrieved only by casting man back again into the circle of merely instinctive action, or by carrying him forward until, by growth in wisdom and knowledge, he becomes fitted to be the lord of creation. The first method has been proved unsuccessful by the rebound of humanity against all the attempts to curb and suppress its liberty. The second has been the effort of all reformers and philanthropists since the world began, and its imperfect success affords a strong ground for clinging to the theistic view of nature, for soliciting the intervention of a Power higher than man, and for hoping for a final restitution of all things through the intervention of that Power. Mere materialistic evolution must ever and necessarily fail to account for the higher nature of man, and also for his moral aberrations. These only come rationally into the system of nature under the supposition of a Higher Intelligence, from whom man emanates, and whose nature he shares.

But on this theistic view we are introduced to a kind of unity and of evolution for a future age, which is the great topic of revelation, and is not unknown to science and philosophy, in connection with the law of progress and development deducible from the geological history, in which an ascending series of lower animals culminates in man himself. Why should there not be a new and higher plane of existence to be attained to by humanity—a new geological period, so to speak, in which present anomalies shall be corrected, and the grand unity of the universe and its harmony with its Maker fully restored. This is what Paul anticipates when he tells us of a "pneumatical" or spiritual body, to succeed to the present natural or "psychical" one, or what Jesus Himself tells us when He says that in the future state we shall be like to the angels. Angels are not known to us as objects of scientific observation, but such an order of beings is quite conceivable, and this not as supernatural, but as part of the order of nature. They are created beings like ourselves, subject to the laws of the universe, yet free and intelligent and liable to error, in bodily constitution freed from many of the limitations imposed on us, mentally having higher range and grasp, and consequently masters of natural powers not under our control. In short, we have here pictured to us an order of beings forming a part of nature, yet in their powers as miraculous to us as we might be supposed to be to lower animals, could they think of such things. This idea of angels bridges over the great natural gulf between humanity and deity, and illustrates a higher plane than that of man in his present state, but attainable in the future. Dim perceptions of this would seem to constitute the substratum of the ideas of the so-called polytheistic religions. Christianity itself is in this aspect not so much a revelation of the supernatural as the highest bond of the great unity of nature. It reveals to us the perfect Man, who is also one with God, and the mission of this Divine Man to restore the harmonies of God and humanity, and consequently also of man with his natural environment in this world, and with his spiritual environment in the higher world of the future. If it is true that nature now groans because of man's depravity, and that man himself shares in the evils of this disharmony with nature around him, it is clear that if man could be restored to his true place in nature he would be restored to happiness and to harmony with God, and if, on the other hand, he can be restored to harmony with God, he will then be restored also to harmony with his natural environment, and so to life and happiness and immortality. It is here that the old story of Eden, and the teaching of Christ, and the prophecy of the New Jerusalem strike the same note which all material nature gives forth when we interrogate it respecting its relations to man. The profound manner in which these truths appear in the teaching of Christ has perhaps not been appreciated as it should, because we have not sought in that teaching the philosophy of nature which it contains. When He points to the common weeds of the fields, and asks us to consider the garments more gorgeous than those of kings in which God has clothed them, and when He says of these same wild flowers, so daintily made by the Supreme Artificer, that to-day they are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven, He gives us not merely a lesson of faith, but a deep insight into that want of unison which, centring in humanity, reaches all the way from the wild flower to the God who made it, and requires for its rectification nothing less than the breathing of that Divine Spirit which first evoked order and life out of primeval chaos.

References:—Articles in Princeton Review on Man in Nature and on Evolution. "The Story of the Earth and Man." London, 1890. "Modern Ideas of Evolution." London, 1891. Nature as an Educator. Canadian Record of Science, 1890.