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 improved upon, 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 incandescent light 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, and that function 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 the truth we must be mentally prepared to accept the truth.

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, with coarse, 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.

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