INVENTION OF IMMORTALITY. 515 



understand, just as the savage cannot understand 

 electricity, magnetism, steam. Disease will be extir- 

 pated ; the causes of decay will be removed ; immor- 

 tality will be invented. And then, the earth being 

 small, mankind will migrate into space, and will 

 cross the airless Saharas which separate planet from 

 planet, and sun from sun. The earth will become 

 a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from 

 all the quarters of the universe. Finally, men will 

 master the forces of nature ; they will become them- 

 selves architects of systems, manufacturers of worlds. 

 Man then will be perfect; h^ will then be a creator; 

 he will therefore be what the vulgar worship as 

 a god. But even then, he will in reality be no nearer 

 than he is at present to the First Cause, the In- 

 scrutable Mystery, the God. There is but a dif- 

 ference in degree between the chemist who to-day 

 arranges forces in his laboratory so that they produce 

 a gas, and the creator who arranges forces so that 

 they produce a world ; between the gardener who 

 plants a seed, and the creator who plants a nebula. 

 It is a question for us now to consider whether we have 

 any personal relations towards the Supreme Power ; 

 whether there exists another world in which we shall 

 be requited according to our actions. Not only is this 

 a grand problem of philosophy ; it is of all questions 

 the most practical for us, the one in which our interests 

 are most vitally concerned. This life is short, and its 

 pleasures are poor ; when we have obtained what we 

 desire, it is nearly time to die. If it can be shown that, 

 by living in a certain manner, eternal happiness may be 

 obtained, then clearly no one except a fool or a mad- 

 man would refuse to live in such a manner. We shall 

 therefore examine the current theory respecting the 



