The Intimate Causes of Old Age. 197 



Earth is to be made heaven. ' Salvation ' is to come 

 from knowledge and the apotheosis of the race. This is 

 what evolution means. This is what life on the earth 

 is struggling upward to win : Immortality, Happiness, 

 Heaven ; ideals to be realized by human effort. The 

 tenets of all the great religious systems foreshadow it. It 

 is time to understand this. It is time to realize our true 

 situation on the earth, and cease from chasing mirage. 

 We have now suiScient knowledge to begin to save our 

 own souls. As well face the facts of our mortal condition 

 to-day as spend another thousand years doting on fond 

 illusions. If we would live, we must save ourselves. 

 This is the religion of life ; the religion of self-salvation. 

 It is not ' atheism ' ; not ' materialism,' in the old crass 

 sense. Not ' infidelity ' ; rather fidelity to the best and 

 the essential doctrines of all religions. Not ' skepticism,' 

 but Hope and Faith in Life. Not the ' idle, new dream ' 

 of ' Scientific Materialism,' but the Dream of all the Ages, 

 the grand scheme of Nature, maturing and going into 

 effect since first our earth became the theater of life." * 



But aside from these alleged ravages of phagocytes, 

 there are functional causes of organic decline which come 

 from lack of coordination and cooperation in the ensemble 

 of organs and apparatuses of the body. 



* Living Matter, 1888. 



