now stands before us: What are the possibilities of
mind to improve our methods of gaining knowledge, shorten time, and
getting greater and better results? I am free to say the question is too
momentous to form an answer, as each day brings a new wonder, to the man
or woman who reasons on cause, and gives demonstrations by effects.

WHAT IS LIFE?

The philosopher who first asked that question no one knows. But all
intelligent persons are interested in the solution of this problem, at
least to know some tangible reason why it is called life; whether life
is personal or so arranged that it might be called an individualized
principle of nature.

I wish to think for a time on this line, because we should make a wise
handling of the machinery of the body.

If life in man has been formed to suit the size and duties of the being;
if life has a living and separate personage, then we should be governed
by such reasons as would give it the greatest chance to go on with its
labors in the bodies of man and beast.

We know by experience that a spark of fire will start the principles of
powder into motion, which, were it not stimulated by the positive
principle of father nature, which finds this germ lying quietly in the
womb of space, would be silently inactive for all ages, without being
able to move or help itself, save for the motor principle of life given
by the father of all motion.

HOW IS ACTION PRODUCED.

Right here we could and should ask the question: Is this action produced
by electricity put in motion, or is it the active principle that comes
as a spiritual man? If so, it is useless to try, or hope to know what
life is in its minutia. But we do know that life can only display its
natural forces by the visible action of the forms it produces.

If we inspect man as a machine, we find a complete building, a machine
that courts inspection and criticism. It demands a full exploration of
all its parts with their uses. Then the mind is asked to see or find the
connection between the physical, and the spiritual. By nature you can
reason on the roads that the powers of life are arranged to suit its
system of motion.

If life is an individualized personage, as we might express that
mysterious something, and it must have definite arrangements by which it
can be united and act with matter; then we are admonished to acquaint
ourselves with the arrangements of those natural connections, the one or
many, as they are conn