The first man and his place in creation : considered on the principles of science and common sense from a Christian point of view : with an appendix on the Negro / by George Moore.

Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first man and his place in creation : considered on the principles of science and common sense from a Christian point of view : with an appendix on the Negro / by George Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    40/424 (page 4)
    Homines sumus, and our own consciousness is necessarily chief witness in the evidence we seek to establish our position; but in meditating on humanity as a kind of existence, object, and subject, the being that thinks and the being thought of are united. This fact alone in a marked manner distinguishes man from all other animate creatures known to us; for of no other can we affirm that it is capable of reflecting on its own peculiarities, or of inferring anything con- cerning itself by making its own consciousness either a subject or object of thought. We cannot say that even the most sagacious of mere animals thinks, in any rational sense of the term. Therefore, the fact that man thinks of his origin and end is a fact to be included in our idea of man, and in our consideration of his existence and his destiny. . In endeavouring to determine man's place in the created order of living existences in this world, we must first ascertain what we can of his own individual nature in its completeness. We must know what he is before we can decide on his relationships, or how he stands with respect to other creatures also known to us. When we have ascertained what kind of being he is, both in body and mind, we may be able to discover what he was made for, and then perhaps account for his existence. But in order to arrive at just conclu- sions in this respect, we are required to consider both the best and the worst example of a human being we can either remember or imagine. We must reason both from his lowest and his highest -qualities, from all