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 pa.s.sing to the "Great Beyond"? Has it, too, an imaginary G.o.d in the form of a Big Fly? And is it also afraid of that G.o.d'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 s.e.x for the strongest impulse that Nature has implanted in us?

This impulse forces us to commit rape and murder, robbery and a.s.sault, 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 s.e.x force, we subside and decline into weakness and decay, only to pa.s.s into death and oblivion.

What a fearful, wasted effort is this life!

IV

The system of nourishment that Nature has imposed upon the world is not only stupid and malicious, but also of a cannibalistic character.

We, as frail human beings, are horrified and shocked to think that our ancestors trafficked in and delighted in eating the flesh of their race, and even to-day we are making a strenuous effort to discourage the barbarous custom of killing animals to eat their flesh, yet it seems a dictate of Nature that forces us to uphold that custom. Just think of it! Nourishment and life-sustaining forces are derived from eating the cooked flesh of a dead animal, the unborn fowl, the bowels of the lamb, and the eggs of the fish!

Can you imagine the wildness of life in such a jungle of cannibalism? No wonder the savage instinct is so deeply implanted in us.

To get a fair idea of the food we eat to sustain life and to please and satisfy our palates, we need but take a casual glance at any of our modern butcher shops. Although to-day you will not see human limbs on display and for sale, as they were years ago, you will be impressed with the following morsels put there to tempt your appet.i.te: In our modern butcher shops you will find pigs' feet, calves' brains, ox tongues, b.r.e.a.s.t.s and legs of lamb, chicken livers, dogs ground to bits and sold as sausages, live and dead fish of all kinds and varieties and innumerable other portions of animal flesh.

Fortunately we have got beyond the point where we eat the entrails of these animals, although we use their hoofs to make glue, their bones for powder, and we string our delicate musical instruments with their vitals.

The things we consume, in turn consume the living forms that they capture and subdue.

The lion, the tiger and the leopard will devour us more quickly, and with less ceremony and with more delight, than we devour other animals.

We, being "civilized," boil the animal's flesh and season it with weeds that Nature allows to grow, to give it zest and flavor, while our wilder brothers eat us in the raw, natural manner, only removing our civilized clothes.

Really, if getting nearer to G.o.d is getting back to Nature, the beasts of the fields have an advantage over us. And we know to-day that even the living things in the vegetable kingdom suffer alike from the fearful tortures and penalties of the world. They follow almost the identical routine of life that we follow. Birth, life, reproduction, and death are their lot as well as ours; so that, if man were only to practice the idealism of his cramped and feeble brain he would starve to death!

V

If the world is the result of an established plan, as some say, it must be the conception of a hideous monster whose three cardinal principles are Disease, Despair and Death. But this much we can say: Though G.o.d created us a savage, fortunately man is civilizing Nature's brute and is making him a Man.

Disease is one of Nature's cardinal forces. So, to attain health, we struggle against disease; but health only means the guarding of it through fear. "With all the ills the flesh is heir to," true health is a chimera, an existing state unknown to man.

To be "well" is such a precious condition, that Nature cautions us against expecting to retain health too long, by instructing us, through experience, to prepare for a siege of illness. Thus, disease and illness would seem to be the natural states, and health the artificial condition under which Nature permits us to live. No one goes to his grave without suffering the tortures of some disease and paying the penalty of living. No one is exempt from the inflictions Nature imposes.

The greater portion of our life consists in devising means and medication to relieve us of our states of ill health and disease.

Sanitation and all the methods we are capable of discovering and inventing are becoming universally applied to kill and to destroy the menacing germs that G.o.d causes to inhabit the air, and that breed and multiply in the fertile flesh of our bodies.

And finally, we are so utterly ignorant of how even to eat, sleep, walk, breathe, stand or sit, that the slightest infringement of the simplest rules of life can, and does, cause us irreparable harm.

If we did not move to help ourselves, Nature would have us live in filth and stagnation.

We seek, discover, or invent all kinds of methods to build health and to remain perfectly strong throughout our lives, and yet, despite it all, we are puny and sickly beings. In fact, I do not think there is such a thing as perfect health. What we may do to correct, insure or perfect our healthy tissues will have a detrimental effect upon some other part of our body. What we do to build up must also tear down. What we do to produce health will, after a certain point, produce disease.

This, it seems, is the law not only of life, but also of the universe.

It is regrettable that G.o.d did not possess the magnanimity of an Ingersoll and make health contagious instead of disease.

Physical pain and mental suffering are the mysterious sorrows that we must experience and pay to a tyrant G.o.d for the existence we bear. It is incontrovertible that no realization is given us by Nature of the fearful pains and tortures that we are capable of suffering and still sustain ourselves, only to repeat over and over again the unending torment in exchange for the consciousness of a worthless life.

We, with our limited intellects, with our puny strength, with our inability to utilize all the materials in our possession, are still superior to the workmanship and the justice of G.o.d.

Tyrant is no name for such a G.o.d, who creates a living organism purposely and maliciously to torment and torture it.

A poor creature is a G.o.d who makes his suffering playthings more powerful than "he," and compels them to bear their existence under the lash of inexorable laws of sorrow and suffering, pain and penalty.

And yet we are satisfied with so little. We ask for a crumb only. We are pleased with the slightest favor. A toy delights us; a little trinket elicits from us warm grat.i.tude; a breath of balmy air is drunken with keen and pleasurable delight; a "fine" day is celebrated with exultation!

But what a mockery is life!

We writhe in pain and bear the brunt of an arrogant tyranny from whatever force that created and controls us. We must daily bathe our bodies, wash our hair, brush our teeth, change our clothes and perform other necessary physical functions to feel freedom from the filthy conditions that Nature imposes upon us and surrounds us with.

If Nature saw fit to give us eyes, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which, upon the slightest contact with a minute foreign substance, cause unutterable pain and possible loss of sight, in a world where sight is so imperative!

If Nature saw fit to give us ears, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which are capable of such frightful pain, with the possibility of becoming totally deaf, when it is so necessary to hear!

If Nature saw fit to give us a nose, she should have given us a perfect one; not one that causes such miserable torture and unbearable suffering from the slightest defect!

If Nature saw fit to give us a mouth, she should have given us a perfect one; one that would perform all the functions of perfect speech; not one that is so liable to harm and so susceptible to dumbness, when speech is of such paramount importance to Life!

If Nature saw fit to give us teeth, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which ache and pain with such fearful intensity that the mind is almost distracted!

If Nature saw fit to give us arms, legs, and organs, she should have given us perfect ones; not a body whose tenderness makes it an instrument of such menacing torture; not a body of crippled bones and crippled joints, where suffering results from everything it does!

If Nature saw fit to give us a brain, she should have given us one strong enough to withstand all the rebuffs of life, and one capable enough to utilize all the forces under command. Each person should be a mental Hercules capable of solving his own problems and directing all matter to its greatest material uses.