Up to this point I have been speaking of human beings only, living under improved conditions that man has made. What must be the horror, darkness and emptiness of those living substances that are "inferior" to us? Do you know and realize the suffering that we endure? Then let me, in passing, urge this: Be also kind and considerate to our less fortunate inhabitants of this earth, the "dumb" animals. Their feelings are quite similar to ours. They have gone through the rougher parts of evolution that gave to us our more useful organs and limbs. They are allied to us in much the same manner as the members of our own species. They have their painful aches and periods, their hardships and tortures, their broken family ties and fearful abhorrence of death; their flesh is tender and their skin is as delicate to them as ours is to us.

So let us "think twice," dear readers, before we deliberately harm any of our humbler brothers and sisters that must inhabit this cold and callous earth and live their lives under a great deal more tyranny and injustice than we live ours.

We deliberately enslave and brutally treat the gentle horse.

We tyrannically imprison birds and fishes as "pets."

We keep, breed, kill and eat a variety of animals for our own selfish purposes, and yet some persons still have the audacity to say that we are "chosen people," "God's children," "divine beings." Bah!

You know what painful inconvenience there is in losing an arm or a leg. Well, the winged and footed beings that must bear this life suffer a great deal more than we do when one of their limbs becomes dismembered.

Man has to a degree remedied or replaced his crippled limbs, but I do not think any other of the higher animals have advanced so far, and as a result these creatures must endure their pain and distressing annoyance to the end.

Recently I watched a common house fly caught upon "fly paper," and studied intently every visible movement of it. Immediately upon alighting upon the sticky substance, its first thought, almost instantaneously, was to make an effort to free itself. At once I thought of the fly's instinct of "self-preservation," and contrasted it with the human's.

The fly must have had intelligence, since it knew that its life was in danger. And, since Nature does not deal in "fly paper," the fly's reasoning power told it of its peril. With unabated determination it vibrated its wings with lightning-like rapidity, and worked its legs unceasingly, breaking them in the attempt, in its efforts to pull itself away to freedom!

As I watched this fly in its labor, this thought came to me: Is the fly unlike the human being in its desire to live? Is it afraid of death and of the mystery of dissolution? Has it, too, all the agony of fear of passing to the "Great Beyond"? Has it, too, an imaginary God in the form of a Big Fly? And is it also afraid of that God's supposed wrath?

If the fly's desire to live is so great, what interest does it have in life?

Does it love? Does it derive happiness when it is able to labor to make happy its fly Juliet?

Does it want to live because it is ambitious and is trying to excel other flies?

Does it really think to better its species and solve the problem of its kind?

Is there a fly family to mourn its death?

While watching that fly and asking myself these questions, I was convinced of the following truths:

That the force that we call life is the same that animates the fly. That it, too, has control of its muscles and nerves in the same proportion as we have control of ours. That it, too, possesses the five senses and adds to its tiny brain more intelligence through its experiences. Within the movements and actions of that fly was wrapped up the secret of "Whence did I come, and whither am I going?"

As I released my attention from that fly, I muttered to myself: "The more I look at insects, the more I think I am one."

For what purpose do we arise in the morning, fill our stomachs with food, till the fields, and perform labor in exchange for nourishment, in the evening fall into a sleep from exertion, arise the next day, and perform the same routine, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, and at the age and in the heyday of physical development seek an outlet in the opposite sex for the strongest impulse that Nature has implanted in us?

This impulse forces us to commit rape and murder, robbery and assault, and to violate every principle of honor that man has tried to establish for the betterment and advancement of the race.

With the dissipation of this mighty sex force, we subside and decline into weakness and decay, only to pass into death and oblivion.

What a fearful, wasted effort is this life!