No one doubts that human life forms the highest point of development that comes within our experience; that it is in some way more than mere animal life. But what it is that is characteristic in human life as distinct from animal life, and how it is to be interpreted, is a matter of dispute. From the earliest times there has been a great diversity of opinion and conviction concerning this matter, and absolutely contradictory views have been maintained. Some thinkers have believed it possible to regard human life, in spite of its uniqueness, as essentially the same as that of the animal, and to trace back all difference to a difference in the quantity of the fundamental nature which they all possess; these thinkers did not concern themselves with presenting the higher as developed from the lower by a gradual growth. Others, on the contrary, regarded human life as something essentially new and in its very nature distinct--the beginning of another kind of world--and denied to the uttermost a derivation from lower forms; these held it to be impossible to avoid the recognition of a break between animal and human life. According to which of these positions was accepted, life obtained a fundamentally different prospect and a fundamentally different task; activity necessarily had different aims and sought different paths; the conflict around this problem affected the whole sphere of existence. As a result of the movements and experiences of the nineteenth century, this conflict has entered upon a new stage. In earlier times the decision had generally been made as a result of the immediate impression of the civilised man who was conscious of his superiority; it did not seem possible for him to lift himself far enough above his environment; the life of his soul, through its distinctive spiritual character, seemed to be as distinct from every impulse which nature exhibited as the sky is distant from the earth. Science and art, morality and religion were accepted as an original possession of man and as the power which had dominated his life from the beginning. He appeared to be a higher being; and to direct all thought and endeavour towards the strengthening of the distinctively human was regarded as the chief requirement of life.