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, although they 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, and _no one exempt_ from its terrible enactment,
it is a _marvelous_ wonder 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, who passed 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 been equally 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.