does, partially at least, for it enables him, in his sphere, to
control the very forces whose action is limited by laws. The superiority
of man is shown in his control of the powers of nature, and making them
obey his will. All such inventions as the steam engine or the electric
telegraph lift man above certain physical laws, by enabling him to
control the forces with which those laws have to do.

Again, he writes: "The analogy of every grade in nature forbids the
presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their
control." On the contrary, we assert that the analogy of every grade in
nature encourages the presumption that higher forms may exist which can
control these forces of nature far more directly and perfectly than we
can.

To proceed. In page 41 we read:--

"If in animated beings we have the solitary instance of an efficient
cause acting among the forces of nature, and possessing the power of
initiation, this efficient cause produces no disturbance of physical
law."

I cite this place, in order to draw attention to what I suppose must
have struck the careful reader, which is the application of the term
"solitary instance" to the action of animated beings amongst the forces
of nature. If there had been but one animated being in existence, such
an epithet might not have been out of place; but when one considers that
the world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they
modify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all
nature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's
surface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at
finding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient
cause. But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened
as to the real reason for so strange a view of the place of vital powers
in the universe. In the eyes of those who persist in, as far as
possible, ignoring all laws except physical laws, even to the extent of
endeavouring to prove that moral forces themselves are but mere
developed forms of physical ones, all manifestations of powers other
than those of electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and so forth are
anomalous, and we have the very word "anomaly" applied to them. "The
only anomaly," he writes, "is our ignorance of the nature of vital
force. [158:1] But do we know much more of the physical?"

Men who thus concentrate their attention upon mere phys