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Chapter XIThe Reason as Governor of LifeREASON using the intelligent will for the ordering of theinner and the outer life is undoubtedly the highest developedfaculty of man at his present point of evolution; it isthe sovereign, because the governing and self-governing facultyin the complexities of our human existence. Man is distinguishedfrom other terrestrial creatures by his capacity for seeking after arule of life, a rule of his being and his works, a principle of orderand self-development, which is not the first instinctive, original,mechanically self-operative rule of his natural existence. Theprinciple he looks to is neither the unchanging, unprogressiveorder of the fixed natural type, nor in its process of change themechanical evolution we see in the lower life, an evolution whichoperates in the mass rather than in the individual, imperceptiblyto the knowledge of that which is being evolved and withoutits conscious cooperation. He seeks for an intelligent rule ofwhich he himself shall be the governor and master or at least apartially free administrator. He can conceive a progressive orderby which he shall be able to evolve and develop his capacitiesfar beyond their original limits and workings; he can initiatean intelligent evolution which he himself shall determine or atleast be in it a conscious instrument, more, a cooperating andconstantly consulted party. The rest of terrestrial existence ishelplessly enslaved and tyrannised over by its nature, but theinstinct of man when he finds his manhood is to be master ofhis nature and free.No doubt all is work of Nature and this too is Nature; it proceedsfrom the principle of being which constitutes his humanityand by the processes which that principle permits and which arenatural to it. But still it is a second kind of Nature, a stage ofbeing in which Nature becomes self-conscious in the individual,tries to know, modify, alter and develop, utilise, consciously