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.