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Man seems to occupy a middle position in the universe. If in respect of his physical organisation he resembles the lower animals, over whom he undoubtedly wields a superior force, in respect of his moral and rational nature he resembles God, the crown and summit of all being. One of the special characteristics of man is self-consciousness. Attribute as you like all individual acts to some chemical or physiological causes, how do you account for the fact that at the bottom of all these individual acts a man is conscious of himself as centre and bond of union of all these acts? What is it which each one of us means when he says "I"? We mean something utterly distinct from all that is not I, something which is profoundly conscious of this deep distinctness. I think, and I know that it is only I who think. I think about myself, and I know that it is myself only about whom I am thinking. I am conscious of my own identity and of my utter separateness from all besides. I trace and assert this separateness and personal identity for any long period of years. When the outward circumstances of my life were quite different from what they are now, when my bodily shape and form were so different that none who had known me earlier could recognise me now, when I had completely other thoughts and feelings and pursuits than I have now; when I was a little child and a schoolboy I was essentially the same as I am now. The thoughts of my mind are my thoughts; the acts of my will are my will. I am the ruler who disposes all other manifold instruments of my nature. This reflective self-conscious faculty is wanting in the beast. Traces of a faculty like memory are indeed found in the beast, formed by a repetition of sensations, but this does not ascend to the higher human faculty of forming an objective notion of sensations and feelings, and therefore the beast has no language, properly so called. He can utter inarticulate sounds, expressive of pleasure and pain; he cannot, like man, compare and generalise, and communicate rational thought by the vehicle of speech. What a paradox to put man on a level with the brute! What is the value and dignity of all the knowledge which has been acquired by the animal portion of the universe since it first came into distinct being? Where is it treasured up? What improvements has it undergone? What ameliorations of condition has it caused? But compare this weakness and non-progressiveness with man as the interpreter of nature, and its lord by knowledge and power. Consider even the present grandeur of human knowledge. Man penetrates into the nature of things, and investigates their hidden causes. He transposes into mental images the things perceived by the senses: he passes beyond the limits of sensuous impressions into the world of rational thought, and thus grasps the eternal truth underlying the perishable. His knowledge here indeed is but partial, but it contains within itself a prophecy of future perfection. Think, moreover, how the whole world without man is reflected in man, and is reproduced by the various forms of art in painting, music, poetry, sculpture — illuminated, beautified, spiritualised, transfigured. Man's imitative art is a resemblance of the Creator's power. It has been irreverently asserted by an atheistic writer that the heavens no longer declare the glory of God, but of Newton and Laplace. The glory of the astronomer who can measure the courses of the heavenly bodies and calculate the forces of the universe is really only another witness to the glory of the Creator, for He who framed the heavens framed also the understanding of the philosophic man, by which he was enabled to ascertain the laws regulating their motions. To man belong also — if we may trust the verdict of a psychology grounded upon actual facts of consciousness — personality and free will. He is not a mere automaton pushed and pulled by external forces over which he exercises no control. All sense of moral obligation demands as a postulate free will — all praise or blame of others are based upon the same hypothesis. The universal testimony of mankind, when not biassed by the desire of conforming to any paradoxical theory, would declare that we do not call a man good or bad in the same way as we should a tree, or a plant, or a dog. Man we believe to be himself a cause of action. The motives by which man acts are, after all, only influences, not compulsions. We are conscious that there is a wide distinction between the influence of a motive, and anything which might be fairly called restraint. We know within ourselves that in yielding to a motive, that is to say, in resolving in conformity with it, we are able to refrain from forming this resolve. We are free to be fools and to be vicious, only we prefer to be rational and to be virtuous.

(W. Ince, M. A.)

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KJV: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

WEB: When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;