The Intimate Causes of Old Age. 195 



an unavoidable sequence to all organic life. The concep- 

 tion that sentience in matter is a constant, a deathless 

 property or attribute of the ultimate ion and corpuscle, 

 and hence that, founding on this constant, immortal life is 

 potentially attainable and logically possible in organisms, 

 perfected by applied science, is an essentially New World 

 idea, a concept of the American brain, which is not as yet 

 much recognized in Europe. It is one of those great 

 dominant ideas of the human brain which unfold only as 

 the westward-moving Aryan makes his new departures 

 from continent to continent. 



" This sentient property of matter is a constant like its 

 corelative, gravitation, and indestructable as matter itself. 

 It is the eternal well-spring of Nature. 



"Here, on this eternal constant, the intimate life of 

 matter, itself, founds the hope of a possible immortality 

 for man. No vicissitude of earth has yet been observed 

 to deteriorate its quality. Everlasting as the stars, it 

 shines from the core of each ultimate particle of matter. 



" Death comes to us, then, not from a law of nature. 

 The law of nature is life, not death. Universal matter 

 lives from eternity. It never dies, not even the least 

 particle of it, but lives immortally. Life is the grand law 

 of the universe from eternity to eternity. 



" Our problem is to make a certain definite mass and 

 form of living matter — an organism — live on this earth 

 as long as the organism shall will so to do. 



