e, and you
search now among its ashes for the living principle. But, God is life;
and 'Canst thou by searching find out God?'"

The man regarded her intently without replying. She bent for a while
over the half-dissected brain in deep thought. Then she looked up.

"Doctor," she said, "life is not structural. God is life; and to know
Him is to reflect life. Reflecting Him, we are immortal. Doctor, don't
you think it is about time to do away with this business of dying?"

The man of science started visibly, and his eyes opened wider. The
abrupt question quite swept him off his feet.

"You didn't really expect to find anything in this brain, did you?"
she went on. "The brain is composed of--what?"

"Why, mostly water, with a few commonplace salts," he answered,
wondering what the next question would be.

"And can a compound of water and a few commonplace salts _think_?" she
asked, looking intently at him.

"N--no," he answered tentatively.

"The brain is not the cause of thought, then, but an effect, is it
not?" she pursued.

"Why, really, my dear Miss Carmen, we don't know. We call it the organ
of thought, because in some way thought seems to be associated with
it, rather than with--well, with the liver, or muscles, for example.
And we learn that certain classes of mental disturbances are
intimately associated with lesions or clots in the brain. That's about
all."

The girl reflected for a few moments. Then:

"Doctor, you wouldn't cut up a machine to discover the motive power,
would you? But that is just what you are doing there with that brain.
You are hoping by dissecting it to find the power that made it go,
aren't you? And the power that made it go was mind--life."

"But the life is not in the brain now," hazarded the doctor.

"And never was," returned Carmen promptly. "You see," she went on, "if
the brain was ever alive, it could never cease to be so. If it ever
lived, it could never die. That brain never manifested real life. It
manifested only a false sense of life. And that false sense died. Who
or what says that the man who owned that brain is dead? Why, the human
mind--human belief. It is the human mind, expressing its belief in
death, and in a real opposite to life, or God. Don't you see?"

"H'm!" The doctor regarded the girl queerly. She returned his look
with a confident smile.

"You believe in evolution, don't you?" she at length continued.

"Oh, surely," he replied unhesitatingly. "There