We rarely stop to think what it is all about, or what we are here for. ——
We know the pig's object in life. It has been beautifully and permanently outlined in Carlyle's "pig catechism." The pig's life object is to get fat and keep fat—to get his full share of swill and as much more as he can manage to secure. And his life object is worthy. By sticking at it he develops fat hams inside his bristles, and WE know, though he does not, that the production of fat hams is his destiny. ——
But our human destiny is NOT to produce fat hams. Why do so many of us live earnestly on the pig basis? Why do we struggle savagely for money to buy our kind of swill—luxury, food, etc. —and cease all struggling when that money is obtained?
Is fear of poverty and dependence the only emotion that should move us?
Are we here merely to STAY here and EAT here?
A great German scientist, very learned and about as imaginative as a wart hog, declares that the human face is merely an extension and elaboration of the alimentary canal—that the beauty of expression, the marvellous qualities of a noble human face, are merely indirect results of the alimentary canal's strivings to satisfy its wants.
That is a hideous conception, is it not? But it is no more unworthy than the average human life, and the average existence has much to justify the German's speculations.
What SHALL we strive for? MONEY?
Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper.
Then, shall we strive for POWER?