according to rational law. For this all see to be true, excepting always cases of manifest infirmity and disorder, that equally the common and the special powers of the individual are to be regulated by the law of benevolence. There are no exemptions for special temperament, whatever diversities there may be in the task which application of the law may involve for some. The _ought_ has ascendency over human life;[DI] the bare perception of this grand reality, taken with all the distinctions involved in its application to personal conduct, and all the forms of personal control exercised for its fulfilment, lies apart from the discoveries of physiology. In these things we see most clearly what mind is, and what mind does in the management of human life. We discover clearly thus what it is which makes human life superior to the life of the animals around us; what it is which makes the best in human life stand essentially connected with the subordination of the animal nature to a higher nature within; and in what respect it stands true that physiology is a science of only a part of our nature, and that the lower, because the subject part. In this man knows, apart from all science, and quite independently of philosophy too, that he has a higher life, working, rejoicing, and advancing to nobler excellence, just as he governs his body, keeping it in subjection, while revering an ideal of moral and spiritual excellence towards the attainment of which it is the duty and honor of humanity to strive. FOOTNOTES: [CX] Hæckel's _Evolution of Man_, vol. i. p. 129. [CY] _Human Anatomy_, i. p. 198. [CZ] _Human Anatomy_, i. p. 199. [DA] From which motor nerves emerge. [DB] _Human Anat._, i. p. 200. [DC] _Human Anat._, i. p. 201. [DD] _Ib._ p. 282. [DE] See Appendix XII. [DF] _Evolution of Man_, i. p. 129. [DG] _Origin of Species_, 6th ed. p. 208. [DH] Whether some of the animals may possess an inferior order of mind, is a question which need not be here discussed. [DI] See Appendix XIII. LECTURE VIII. RELATION OF SCIENCE TO OUR CONCEPTIONS OF DIVINE INTERPOSITION FOR MORAL GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD. The view given in previous lectures of the most prominent features of the recent advances in scientific knowledge most intimately concerning our religious conceptions of the origin and government of the world, may afford some aid towards forming a judgment of the points of contact and apparent conflict. A brief summary will afford the best introduction to the lines of inquiry with which the present discussion may be brought to a close.