The only justification there is to live, once conscious of the damnable scheme of life, is the burning desire to do something to help mankind bear the conditions and to make easier the burden of life for those who are here and for those who are to come; for very often the greatest benefactors of the race are so maligned and persecuted in their day that only the future can render a just appreciation of their labor and their value.
For without the improvement bestowed on life by the world's benefactors, over the crudity of Nature, it were better that we remain in the bosom of our wilder brothers, and hang from the trees by the length and the strength of our tails. Aye, back and back and back, down every degree of life until the time before the first cell of protoplasm from an inanimate into an animate state started.
Why must we be made to suffer such dreadful torment before death, since by eternal decree it is the common lot all must endure?
Death, puzzling, eternal death, is Nature's final stamp upon our fearful struggle through life.
And the agony of death is more poignantly mental than physical, since the mind, reviewing the acts of the past, anticipates with anxiety and with picturesque vividness the wrongs, scandals, terrors, fears and injustice of the future.
Since life is so replete with physical pains, no wonder our picture of death is so horrible.
We see upon the lifeless form the cast of its agonizing pain, and augur from that an eternity of sorrow. But fortunately, in reality we can only feel pain as long as we possess "life." In a sense, therefore, death is a blessing.
After all, the severest pains of death lie inthe brains of the living. The mind is capable of suffering in one moment all that a lifetime can repay with pleasure, and no joy is sufficient in value to compensate you for enduring an irreparable loss.
The conditions that existed before our birth are identical with the conditions that will exist at our death. As we knew no life and felt no pain before our birth, we shall know no life and feel no pain after our death.
Death is no longer the enigma of life. Living is its problem. The sting of death has been removed. We know death's destiny, and no longer fear its consequences. The only suffering attached to death now is the injustice of its time of coming, the reluctance of parting with loved ones, and the loss of the opportunity to attain. Well might I say with Shakespeare, that:
"Cowards die many times before their death;The valiant never taste of death but once.Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,It seems to me most strange that men should fear;Seeing that death, a necessary end,Will come when it will come."
"Cowards die many times before their death;The valiant never taste of death but once.Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,It seems to me most strange that men should fear;Seeing that death, a necessary end,Will come when it will come."
The most despicable characters of human life are those who prey upon credulous persons when in the face of death and shrouded with the fear of its uncertainty, picturing to those persons horrible and frightening tales of an eternity of torture.
What unspeakable misery must those whose religious conviction has so terrified death and its aftermath, especially when it is intensified and horrified through the mouthpiece of ignorant priests, suffer in consequence of death.
Oh, what a fearful sting must be there!
Just think what this poor, vast, credulous multitude pay, with the sweat of their brows and the bend of their backs, to enrich these moral beasts in exchange for their ignorant and terrifying mumblings, that rob the deluded ones of every fiber of courage and every thought of perfect peace and rest.
It is while living that death possesses its sting and anguish. Anyone that seeks tribute from the dying, or from the living forservices on behalf of the dead, is a damnable moral scoundrel and a cunning rascal.
To those whose minds have been poisoned from childhood with this religious conviction, this most awful of beliefs, I cry: "Throw off these tyrants of the mind. Emancipate yourselves from this fearful ignorance and mental bondage!" What a burden will be lifted from their lives and what a glorious freedom they will experience!
If we are to die, let us die in perfect calmness and in perfect peace. Let us become firmly convinced that, once we are dead, no thought, no act, can possibly harm us. We are beyond the pale of Nature's pangs. We, the individuals that we were, are free from everything. We are at rest, and forever.
But after this life with all our pains and sorrows, what then? What is there to repay us for living?
I answer:
Nothing!
I have no misgivings about the "future." I am firmly convinced that there is no "after life," that when we "breathe our last" we arrive at our eternity. We are "one with yesterday's seven thousand years." We are like the flower which, "once blown, forever dies."
I firmly believe that life as now manifested in our bodies is a combustible force identical with that of any other form of life. No less so than the "seed" of the flower is different from the "germ" of the wheat.
Both are forces!
So are we!
They may be different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same.
In fact, the very force that manifests itself in a mechanical instrument made by man is the identical substance that rules the organs, and charges the brain of our being. In the same manner that the force dissipates itself in the mechanical instrument made by man, and no longer gives motion to its parts, so the force that animates our being dissipates itself and is no longer capable of giving motion to our parts and organs.
As man's instruments are dependent upon many channels for their complete performance, so the human brain and body have their many dependencies that must fully and properly be nourished to maintain their power.
Each day science draws another veil from the mystery of life.
Our eye is but a chemical camera, that we have not only reproduced, but even improved upon.
Our voice is nothing but a vibration, that we have not only reproduced and improvedupon, but whose minutest modulations we have recorded in innumerable duplications.
Our ear is but a drum, that carries and conveys to the brain the vibrations of our voice, and that function we have reproduced and even improved upon by the instrument we call the telephone.
The telegraphic system of the human body that communicates to the brain the conditions that the senses perceive, is no other than that which man has even improved upon by the transmission of an intelligible message to a far-distant land without the use of any apparent conductor. With the marvelous instrument, the telephone, man sends his voice around the world.
Man's greatest inventions, the phonograph, the camera and the telephone, both wire and wireless, make the work of Nature, as manifested in our bodies, a simple, childish affair, fit only for the kindergarten of things.
When Edison invented the incandescentlight and reproduced the human voice in the phonograph he pulled aside the veil of secrecy and penetrated the infinite.
He proved and demonstrated man to be greater than God.
Our limbs carry our bodies in the direction our brains dictate, andthatfunction we have reproduced and even improved upon in all the means of locomotion that we daily use and which we now consider as a "matter of fact" among the ordinary things of life. "Comparisons are odious" when we compare the awkward motion of Nature with the rapid locomotion of man.
Man progresses far too rapidly for the accommodation of Nature, and as a result adapts for his use and benefit vital essentials that Nature in her laziness has either failed to utilize, or will not utilize.
Although we have not yet completely discovered all the material and mechanical elements that compose life, we are sure and certain of their origin.
We hear ourselves talk; we decide upon our destination and direct our motion; we eat when we are hungry; sleep when we are tired; cry when we are in pain; and laugh when we are tickled. Our whole being from start to finish is mechanical, and the element of something "spiritual," something separate and distinct from a purely material sense, is absolutely illogical and ill-founded in view of the illimitable illustrations that are being demonstrated every day.
It is a thing easily understood, if we logically, and intelligently, without blindness, preference or prejudice, analyze the problem.
It may sound better and more desirable to say that we possess a "soul"—that this life is but a "stepping stone to a higher plane"—but it is not true.
We cannot observe the true, actual facts of life by coloring our subject. If we want to determine thetruthwe must be mentally prepared to accept thetruth.
A painted face, brightened eyes, blackened eyelids, Marcelled hair, and a form draped in all the splendor of the finest silks do not make a woman possess the sweetness and charm that all this "dope" is intended to make us believe.
As much as man wants to have the end of this life attain certain benefits and destinations, this desire does not make them real.
The implicit confidence in a faithless wife does not make her loyal and virtuous. A wife's confidence in a profligate husband does not make him stanch and true.
Life calls for a cold analysis. It must be stripped of all its artificial colorings and superfluities. It must be measured and weighed for what it actually is, not for what we would like it to be. It must be determined in the unwavering scales of science.
The proper study of mankind is not the man in the white starched collar, with trimmed hair, shaven face and polished shoes, but the man recently from the forest, withcoarse, grizzly hair upon his back, brutal and violent passion dominating his body, and savageness and hatred in his startled and terrifying eyes.
The sooner we come to the realization of this vital fact, the sooner we become acquainted with the basic origin of life, the sooner we shall understand life, with its achievements, with its aspirations and hopes.
It is an absolute fact and certainty, impossible of refutation, that when animation ceases in the body and no effort is made to revive it, life ceases and the processes of decay and decomposition set in.
Yet it is permanently established and has been successfully demonstrated innumerable times, that certain methods of artificial stimulation have revivified and resuscitated the delicate organs that cause the heartbeat and give consciousness to the brain.
Recently my local newspaper contained the following item:
"DEAD" BUT SAW NO SPIRITSOklahoma City, Okla., February 7th—Neal Dillingham doesn't believe in after-death communication with the living. Dillingham was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to know.Doctors said Dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot of blood. His heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe.Insertion of a saline solution into his artery justabove the heart caused the clot to dissolve, and Dillingham came back to life."I did not return to earth after I left it," said Dillingham. "I had no knowledge of anything that took place, but I must have been pretty dead, as I do know I didn't recognize several persons I had known all my life, after I was myself again. If I had any talks with anybody while I was 'dead' I don't remember anything about them."
"DEAD" BUT SAW NO SPIRITS
Oklahoma City, Okla., February 7th—Neal Dillingham doesn't believe in after-death communication with the living. Dillingham was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to know.
Doctors said Dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot of blood. His heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe.
Insertion of a saline solution into his artery justabove the heart caused the clot to dissolve, and Dillingham came back to life.
"I did not return to earth after I left it," said Dillingham. "I had no knowledge of anything that took place, but I must have been pretty dead, as I do know I didn't recognize several persons I had known all my life, after I was myself again. If I had any talks with anybody while I was 'dead' I don't remember anything about them."
Believing that the publicity that this case received would make the party known to the postal authorities, I sat down and wrote him a letter, hoping that, if fortunate enough to have a letter delivered to him, he might be kind enough to write me personally of his experience.
After a lapse of several days I received from him a letter substantiating in detail all that was mentioned in the newspaper clipping quoted above.
In the instance of this man Dillingham, he was "dead," so to speak, and as far as his "soul" was concerned it had "left" the body; yet the injection of a material solution, compoundedby man, in conjunction with artificial respiration, caused the beating of the heart and gave back to the brain its power of consciousness.
If it is the "soul" that causes the functioning of the body, where is it when such an action takes place?
If it is the "soul" that gives us "life," how is it that we can materially and mechanically destroy it?
We are born and nourished by material means.
We live our life by material means.
We reproduce our kind by material means.
And we can destroy ourselves by material means.
Everything that touches and concerns our life is purely material, and it should be incumbent upon those who believe in the "Soul" or the "Spiritual Element" of man to produce the proof of their contention.
We are nothing but a continual propagating instrument, without spiritual, moral, lastingor ultimate value. We are here to reproduce our kind and for nothing more. What man secures for himself within the narrow circle of his existence here is all that he gains for the life that Nature forces him to live.
Everything man has, man has made. Nothing has been given to him by Nature. God has been a miser!
If man possessed a "soul" the thousand deformities of the brain would not exist. Insanity would be impossible, and all the forms of petty vices that so miserably afflict us would be totally unknown.
That which gives us the power of life is a combination of the material forces of Nature, and the elements that compose the brain are of a chemical substance. The difference between a "live" person and a "dead" one can be summarized by a great many instances about us, and because of their commonplaceness, we do not observe them.
There are many apples falling to the ground, but we are not inspired with theknowledge that the actuating force is gravity.
One of the best illustrations, to show the difference between a "live" and a "dead" person, can be had from that excellent invention called the "film" or "plate," and which is so remarkably used in the camera.
When that sensitive composition of chemicals that forms the "film" and which produces such a vivid and lasting likeness of ourselves is freshly made, it possesses that vital something we call "life."
But allow this film to remain unused for a period of time, and it will no longer be able to perform its remarkable work. It will not possess the "life" to take a picture or to record an impression.
If a premature "exposure" of the film is made, it loses its vital quality because of the mixture with other elements, or because of the evaporation of its constituent parts.
It is not necessary to analyze all the properties of that film to show the principlewhereby it performs its wonderful work. The general principle, showing its marvelous use while intact and its utter uselessness when its composition is no longer the same, should be sufficient to illustrate the comparison.
This illustration can with force and conviction be applied to the peculiar quality and nature of our "soul" and brain. As long as the brain is incased within our skull, and fully protected from contact with any other substance to alter or to change its integrity, it will perform all that is warranted of it. In the case of our brain, though, besides the importance of keeping it protected from outside chemical action, the vital element concerned in its continuity of life lies in the importance of keeping it constantly nourished and supplied with the remarkable qualities of the vital substance of blood.
The moment the blood supply to the brain is stopped, our brain loses its most important constituent, with the ultimate and inevitableresult of inertia, decomposition and decay. When this condition happens we are then "dead" and, like the proverbial egg, "all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again."
If we possessed a soul, and it were of a permanent and special quality, it would maintain its impressions and remember its existence.
It could pass through innumerable periods and know its many and varied journeys.
Even memory, so unreliable in our short life, bespeaks the utter impossibility of such a thing as a soul with a permanent and lasting existence.
That which we call the "soul" is nothing but a chemical composition, that can anddoeslose its permanency while we are still alive.
We are acquainted with a number of chemical compositions that must remain in a pacific state to maintain their identity, so those chemical forces that compose our"soul" must perforce maintain their equilibrium.
If we are stunned, or suffer any of the many conditions that upset chemical compounds and compositions, we, for the time being, suffer either "unconsciousness" or some other form of mental disability.
If we are shocked too severely, we become totally and permanently impaired, and suffer violent fits and fearful rages, insanity or imbecility.
Different shocks, and even forms of disease, result in certain action upon our chemical brain, which causes it to lose only part of its ability. Extreme high fever is only one form of illness which causes the brain to lose its stability and run rampant and unbridled.
If I were fully cognizant of all forms and degrees of disease, I could recite exactly how they act and in what degree they harm the delicate organism of our brain. In many instances shocks or diseases too powerful forour brain to withstand, cause that portion of our brain that may control our speech, our sight, our hearing, our limbs or other organs to lose its power, with the consequence that we must suffer and be handicapped with what is properly called "a great affliction."
Science to-day has discovered that great truth, and has not only catalogued the different portions of the brain in their individual departments or capacities, but, by a master stroke of surgery, can correct and remedy those impaired parts, and give back to the human being the use of those valuable organs that the invisible agents of Nature had taken away.
So, instead of the brain's possessing a "soul," we find it, only in a more delicate degree, a mechanical formation such as we discovered our body to be.
But if we possess a soul and it is capable of passing through the many and varied stages that life suffers, what becomes of itsimpressions? What and where are the benefits of its retention?
Where is the soul when we are in a state of unconsciousness? Surely, if the soul were ever present to guard and maintain life, it would be standing by and using its power when it is most needed. We have no occasion for help when we are not in danger. It is when power can be used and exercised that it should be manifested.
Even love, the great compelling force of our life, is subject to the variations of our chemical "soul," its attractions and repulsions.
If two form the unit of reproduction, and love is the great mating medium of Nature, then once it is animated, once it is brought into existence, it should endure permanently, and the possessors should at least enjoy their blissful companionship until the end. But no. Nature would entice, and then destroy, this most consuming feeling of life.
Two persons can start life with the mostirresistible attraction and irrepressible love and within a very short time, unless they guard their love with every means and weapon of advanced thought and reason, Nature, through her duplicity, will provide searching eyes to alienate their affection, causing a wretchedness unparalleled in the mental miseries of mankind's life.
The saddest state of all is when two persons, with the sacred devotion of love, cohabit and the happy result is loving children, and yet while this happy family, free from Nature's pitfalls and snares, are living in a peaceful and blissful state, there exists the ever-menacing "devil" who tempts the loving wife and mother to follow the will-o'-the-wisp—and thereby undoes and destroys the greatest kingdom of life.
The devoted husband and father, by the flash of an eye, and the charm of a face, can forsake his sacred ties of devotion and become a degenerate and outcast, with death as his only salvation. In either case Naturestands by with a sneer upon her lips, and God forgets his obligation to his children. But the final analysis proves beyond doubt that the physical attraction is responsible for this action; and who can deny that it is the chemical attraction of two forces that produced this irresistible desire?
If the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better life somewhere else, Nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a more lofty plane.
Were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired knowledge would be constantly and forever used.
There would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be purposely sent here; neither would there be prematuredeaths, as no one could leave without "learning his lesson."
There would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we would be required to attain. Knowledge, or whatever condition Nature imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to its acquirement.
As it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to escape the acquisition of knowledge.
If our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent.
But how sadly untrue is this premise!
For thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. An instance that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of the contention that we are living on this planet as alesson in school, lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat.
Even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it.
As desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even contrary to Nature herself. The entire scheme of Nature seems to be fashioned upon the same principle as our life. The fearful struggle of the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. Even the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity, leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. Recent astronomical discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas.
The belief of an existence after death is so untenable in the face of many scientific discoveries of to-day, and of the irrefutablefacts that are constantly staring us in the face, that an instance or two are all that are necessary to prove the fallacy of such a belief.
Under many circumstances we are unable to recognize our own blood relations after a lapse of a certain length of time. Parents fail to know their children; and children their parents. This is equally true in every comparison and degree of relationship. Features and characteristics undergo such a decided change and transformation that recognition is ofttimes even impossible. Even the law courts are continually called upon to determine the proper identity of persons, to establish the ownership of property by other means than by personal identification. Most remarkable of all, under new conditions, we do not recognize ourselves within the interval of only a few seconds!
Try this if you would seek proof, and convince yourself that recognition of your own personality is momentarily impossible, andthat you must resort to other senses than that of sight to identify yourself.
Put a wig upon your head, blacken your face, "make up" your features, and when you have finished and are completely unaware of your changed appearance, look into the mirror for your reflection and feel the sensation of the startling fact that you know not yourself.
We speak of changes so radical in a person's appearance that we often say we could not recognize him "in a thousand years."
What a ridiculous presumption it is, then, to maintain that we live after death whenallsenses are gone and perception is dead!
Again, how anyone can say that when we die we go to "heaven" is too childish to consider, because when we die, instead of going up and to heaven, we are put deep into the ground to moulder and to rot away.
What a far-fetched conclusion it is to assume that we live after death, minus all the physical characteristics and under conditionsutterly incomprehensible to our minds! Even if, at death, the body turned into invisible gases it would mean and prove absolutely nothing.
If we live after death, by what means can one person communicate with another?
We cannot feel, because we have no hands.
We cannot see, because we have no eyes.
We cannot smell, because we have no nose.
We cannot hear, because we have no ears.
We cannot taste, because we have no mouth, no stomach.
But, with it all, these five mediums of sense are dependent upon aliving brain.
The fact that we suffer the loss of our senses even before death, because of the complications in the make-up of our body, should be sufficient proof of the nonexistence of a soul and the utter impossibility of a life after death.
Unless we retain and maintain our sacred ties after death, another life is valueless and void, useless and unnecessary. It is a fearfulsadness to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous ferocity.
But, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true that death ends all.
Death means nothing to the affairs of the world.
To be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. The gap is immediately filled, and the levelof the water simultaneously adjusted, leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. Only the individual suffers. What a mighty burst of heart there would be if we all could feel and suffer at the same time!
Nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living and the dead. The warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless, unfeeling corpse.
The sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts to bear.
Murder, rape and greed look no different to Nature than goodness, virtue and unselfishness.
Tears were made for the things that God causes, laughter is the result of man's efforts.
It is man's labor, man's work, man's achievement, that gives us the little desire that we have to live. How often do we preferdeathto living life in our former condition, after our efforts have brought us to a point of vantage and comfort!
Death is always preferable to the living of a "dog's life!" And yet, with it all, the little improvement we have to-day, with the still remaining cruel conditions of Nature left to endure and fight, has not been worth the struggle through the black and bleak past. The price has been entirely too severe for the little that has been gained.
God gives man nothing; man gives man everything!
What sublime courage it was that made the pathfinders of the past sacrifice their lives, in order that their principles of truthmight triumph, so that another link might be made in the chain of progress that is endeavoring to break the spell of a tyrant power.
You must be made to know that for whatever desirable condition we have to-day we are indebted to heroic men and women of the past, who, in the days of infant progress, achieved a moral, physical and intellectual triumph.
The chair you sit on, the cup you drink from, the fork you eat with, the light you read by, the bed you sleep in, the heat that warms you, the shoes on your feet, the clothes upon your back, the hat upon your head, and every part and particle of improvement that has enriched the world with a little touch of human comfort are the result of the heroic labors of the men and women of the past, who victoriously fought the accursed and chaotic forces of Nature, so as to make life and living a little better.
But at every step and stage of progress the dogmatists have exerted their influencetoward retardation. What these dogmatists were unable to accomplish through fear and suppression, they accomplished through ostracism, and death. Human advancement and progress are foreign to the "believing" mind. The dogmatists are concerned only with the "supernatural." They want not the comforts of life here if they can secure those benefits "hereafter."
It is the attitude of the religious to belittle anything that is designed for human betterment. Their philosophy is, the more you suffer here, the less you will suffer "hereafter." Their humility to and fear of this "unseen" power is the most degrading trait in human beings. It is a frame of mind not only despicable and a hindrance in the face of progress, but even antagonistic to and destructive of all things worth while.
To them, the insanity of belief is of paramount importance, and is more sacred and holy than human life. Aye, human life hasbeen so subordinated to this superstitious belief that it meant death in the past to those who rejected it.
Rather observe some "holy day" than perform "work" to help some fellow human being in distress. Murder, rather than eat meat on a "forbidden day"! This frame of mind is one of the mental mysteries that science has yet to solve.
The rotundity of the earth was discussed and its circumference scientifically measured hundreds of years before the supposed birth of Christ, and had not the "God believers" been so persistent in forcing their belief upon others, and had not Christianity been born, I can see how the discovery of America would have been accomplished about a thousand years before the discovery by Columbus; and the incalculable progress which would have been the consequence would have carried mankind beyond the boldest imagination of to-day, and placed us a thousand years nearer civilization.
Hero, a mathematician, who lived at the time when the Greek minds were the marvel of the world, invented a steam engine, which was used in experiments and was rapidly nearing completion and perfection,when, unfortunately, ignorant and destructive Religion, that was madly trampling upon everything of value, destroyed the famous Alexandrian Library wherein was kept a model of this engine. It also swept away the incalculable wealth of knowledge that had required ages to accumulate, and thereby completely annihilated the most priceless possessions that the human race ever owned.
But that is not all; it is only a fragment. For history at every stage of life shows the continual strife between the forces of progress and the religious fanatic and God believer.
What is that strange form of insanity that prompts people to torture and to destroy those who seek to emancipate them from theTyranny of Godand from the deluded belief in a hereafter?
The attitude of all, each and every one of us, should ever be the desire and willingness to greet a new idea, to support a new thought, to try a new proposal, to do all in our power to uphold the forces of progress,to lend our help and to devote our energies in any direction that will ultimately lead us from the cruel forces and narrow limitations that are our lot to share.
To those who have no thought for these things, who care not what forces and conditions man must face, who take without thought and give only through compulsion, whose self-satisfied condition (made possible only by the heroic work of the martyrs of progress) make of them personal heroes, whose life is wrapped within the flicker of a day, who do not know, do not realize, and do not care about the fearful suffering of the world—I say to them to strut their intoxicated hour and pass away. The sooner they live their lives and the sooner they die, the better for the earth. It needs fertilization.
Were we as mentally progressive as we are materially advanced, what a wonderful and magnificent improvement over the present living conditions we would be enjoying!Every new invention, every new improvement, would be immediately and universally installed, and every old and antiquated instrument and method would be discarded and destroyed. That which now seems only within the command of the households of the immensely wealthy, would be as popularly used and enjoyed as the now commonly used articles in the poorest households.
Think of existing to-day in a predominant percentage of dwellings for human beings where there is not found the essential bathtub, or the still more essential toilet room!
Governments are instituted for the people's benefit, and shame upon such a government, in an enlightened age like to-day, that tolerates such a condition, when that government possesses the men, the means, the intellect and the materials to electrify the world!
The first and foremost essential in higher development is the comfort and conveniences in a home.
These are some of the conditions that the progressive minds of the world are trying tosolve and remedy. It is only a question of how much longer the majority of people will pay homage to an imaginary God for imaginary benefits in an imaginary life after death.
It is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest, that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace with the material progress.
Better still, the universal application of the material progress has been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement. The automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people, whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox cart and the tallow candle.
Slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments.
Oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people they were striving to benefit!
This same fate has been met by all the brave and courageous, during the past, who have made any attempt to broaden the life and to ease the pain of the troubled heart of humanity.
The unselfish endeavors of man have made it possible to take the dumb matter of earth and mold it so the voices of the present can be heard by the ears of the future; so that several generations may hear and know, with a touch of human affection, the traits, features and characteristics of their ancestors. Language gives us their thoughts, the camera gives us their natural, life-like features and the phonograph their actual, living voices!
Nature never did so much. As far as Nature is concerned, bastardy may rule the world!
One of the comforts of life is that we live again in actions and scenes, which, althoughthey are apart from our own lives, really belong to the past or future races. But Nature sees to it that the births and deaths, the knowledge and acquaintance of each and every generation, are so closely allied that none of us is allowed to escape the suffering of the world and the agony of life and death. No person can avoid the pain and the terrible fear that all must endure.
No one person can live, move about and possess the varied improvements of the earth's materials all by himself. He is indebted to others for their accomplishments, and they in turn are indebted to him for the improvements he renders. In short, we are all so closely allied with the actions and lives of one another that there should be a mutual appreciation and a common understanding among all.
The farmer may know nothing about manufacturing; the manufacturer may know nothing about farming; the artist, the explorer,the thinker, the inventor and the scientist may know nothing about any field of endeavor other than his own, yet all are inter-dependent.
With such a condition existing, and with the uncertainty of life forever staring us in the face, andno one exemptfrom its terrible enactment, it is amarvelouswonder to me why there exist so tenaciously in the human heart all the petty and aggravating tempers, prejudices and jealousies.
What man has done with the forces of Nature are inspiring deeds. What progress has been made in opposing the forces of Nature is marvelous. What man will accomplish in the future with the arrogant forces of Nature stimulates our hearts with the sweet satisfaction of a victory of the first magnitude.
But in the final analysis, what does it avail us?
Geologists tell us that the greater portion of the materials that we have taken from the field of Nature consists of the buried bones and bodies of our ancient ancestors, whopassed through greater periods of agony, torment, disease and death than we are finally and eventually to meet!
What sort of crust in the earth's formation are we to make? What will be the product of the future living forces that will utilize the materials that our bodies will make? What will be the future living forces?
It is fearfully sad to contemplate that life must continue and be subject to the miserable laws that now govern it.
Insect man, with his almost tireless industry, makes clothes to cover his ugly and awkward body; builds houses to shelter him from the winds and the torrents of Nature; fashions glittering palaces of amusement to cheer his troubled heart; compounds anæsthetics to ease his pain; carves wood to replace his broken limbs; molds metal to take the place of those things that Nature has made inadequate for his use. In short, man has improved upon Nature to uphold his frail body,to strengthen his weak bones, and to soothe his tender heart.
That man, fighting the forces of Nature, has been able to accomplish so much is simply glorious, and this progress is an achievement of such wonderful magnitude that we are thrilled at the thought, and bow in grateful recognition for the benefits derived and the relief enjoyed.
But why did not God institute all the benefits for the immediate use of man, so they could be enjoyed upon the first manifestation of his understanding?
Why was it necessary to go through the fearful period of past history and gain, only after a most gigantic struggle, the few things that we now use for our comfort?
That these things could have been done is proved by the fact that man has done them. Fundamentally they always existed. Man has only discovered and applied them. And these things that we have gained to-day, from the struggles of the past, would have beenequally enjoyed by those who lived before us, with the same degree of benefit, just as the future will find, use and enjoy those things that we do not possess, and without which we shall be pinched, and pained, through the helter-skelter of this troublesome life.
I brand as brutal tyranny this scheme of life, that forces us to be a link in a long series of lives to produce something for the benefit of the far-distant future, that we, ourselves, imperatively need but shall not possess.
I cry and denounce and plead, in behalf of future humanity, to circumvent and to defeat this "sorry scheme of life," that uses us as an instrument to produce something that we cannot use, do not know about and have not the understanding to comprehend.
"In God We Trust," on coins that represent our labor and our endeavor, is an insult to the intelligence, courage and independence of the people, and a stinging rebuke to those responsible for our progress.
A motto that more truthfully represents our material progress and intellectual development would be: "In Science We Trust;" or, "Humanity and Justice Our Aim."
The more we eliminate God from us, the more we areone without him, the better for us all, the better for humanity, the better for all the world. The less we "know" of God, the less God that is "in us," the morehumanwe become.
The greatest, most frightful and destructive wars of all time have been those which were started in "defense" of God, as if "he" cared what man says or does.
The most frightful and torturous instruments ever conceived by man are those that were made to force people to "believe in" God.
The history of religious persecution and torture is the horror of the world.
May I ask, where was God, and what did he do, to stop this frightful nightmare of torture committed in "his" name?
And may I answer for you, that he was where Moses was when the light went out?
Remember this: There will never be a solution to any of our fundamental problems, and mankind will never, in the full sense of the word, be free, as long as there exists in the human mind the insanity of religious belief. As long as God occupies a portion of our thoughts, mankind must be content to suffer the hatred and antagonism of man.
Let us make up our minds now, let us resolve now, to stop fighting one another, and fight God by helping one another.
Let us stop fighting our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers, and fight God.
Let us help our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers.
Let us cleanse our minds of this superstitious poison of an "after life," and work and labor for the good and welfare of Here and Now.
We possess the knowledge and the means and, within the span of only one day, could bring about the much-longed-for "Brotherhood of Man."
We could eliminate hatred from our hearts, and instill Justice as our guide. We could eradicate poverty from our midst and bring happiness to sorrowing mankind. We could blot out tyranny among men and exchange it for the priceless legacy of freedom and make the relation between man and man bear some semblance of humanity.
But—and I say this with redoubled conviction, and with all the power, force, energyand vehemence that I possess—if we are Nature's best endeavor, if man is Nature's best product, if the Natural world is incapable of any improvement, and life will forever be made to submit to the tyrannical conditions of Nature, then it were better ten thousand times over, that life were never called into existence, and that the universe were null and void!