i88 Natural Salvation. 



" The bold breed of lapetus presses on, unabashed, with 

 face set to the dangers of an unknown future." Across 

 the gulf of more than two millenniums, the hardy cour- 

 age, the bold initiative, of these great-hearted ones of old, 

 lends inspiration. The breed survives, the breed that 

 brought down fire from the emperean, that raised the 

 dead. 



That is ever the scientific spirit, the spirit that came 

 from partaking of the Tree of Knowledge, the spirit that 

 will accept nothing less than an untrammeled liberty to 

 seek knowledge and use it. 



To-day, in these opening years of the 20th century, we 

 face the greatest, the gravest problem which has ever en- 

 gaged the attention of men, the problem of controlling 

 and prolonging our lives at will. 



Medicine, all medical practice, is an effort to prolong 

 life, or postpone the immediate dissolution of the human 

 body. From the 13th to the 18th centuries, too, while 

 chemistry was still nascent, there were mystic alchemists 

 and alleged Rosicrucians who sought to grasp a sporadic 

 immortality by elixirs and strange decoctions. But not 

 until this last quarter of a century has the grander idea 

 been grasped, that prolonged life, looking toward immortal 

 life, will be the natural outcome of the evolution of life 

 on the earth. 



