Preservation of life

“ The preservation of life demands, not merely physical toil, but some degree of contrivance, and, indeed, the vigorous exertion of the intellectual powers. And here, though nature is not prodigal of her gifts, she grants to industry and skill something more than the bare necessities of life. ”

“ The law of survival also undergoes a profound modification. Men are no longer subject to the vicissitudes of natural environment where winds may congeal their limbs, where floods may overwhelm them with death, and where disease may carry them away in multitudes. These agencies still act and have their victims, but the inventions of man are ever becoming more potent for the preservation of life. ”

“ He applied this, to be sure, to the fierce struggles for food and other necessaries of life in which, during early stages of development, human beings engaged for the purpose of self-preservation. It is just as applicable, however, to our present struggle for life, for the care and the foresight that we must exercise in order to secure the food and the shelter and the fresh air and the sunlight which are necessary simply as preparation for what we consider our life work really involve just the thought and the exercise of reason that make life for us as distinguished from mere existence. ”

“ Meanwhile, the progress of medicine, the increased healthiness of the country, through the destruction of the woods, the draining of marshes, the improvements in the police of cities, and their better ventilation, all tending to the prolongation of life generally, and especially to the preservation of infant life, render the necessity for moral restraint more urgent and intense than ever. ”

“ Only a perfected organism, maintaining a permanent correspondence with its environment, could be permanently capable of combating physical death. And since the [88] cycle of the birth and death of all forms of life constitutes the central principle of natural law, it is difficult to imagine an eventual eternal preservation of individual physical life to be the ordained end of the evolution of humanity. ”

“ But, whatever may be the opinion of the reader, he will not deny that none should fail to derive some benefit from the numerous hints we have given for the preservation of health and prolongation of life. If by reason of our advice we succeed in saving but a single human life from a premature grave, our aim will have been attained. ”

“ This leads us to consider the means which we are to use, to preserve our own lives, and the lives of others. As to 541what respects the preservation of our own life; we are not to rush presumptuously into danger of death, without a divine warrant, for that is to be prodigal of life. ”

“ Preservation of health—prevention and cure of disease—prolongation of
Life, and augmentation of the faculties of appreciation and enjoyment.
The increase of our flocks and herds, and of other sources of supply for the food of man. The discovery and creation of new means of sustenance and the amelioration of the old.
The discovery of the properties of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, reptiles, and creeping things, and their application to the service of man. ”

“ Self-preservation is the central aim of all life-activities. ”

“ It is only a means to the end. The end itself is the good. If life be considered desirable the preservation and continuation of life must be looked upon as a good. But closer analysis shows that even this may, from a certain point of view, be regarded as a means. ”

“ The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes. ”

“ Beside, to preserve the living, and make the dead to live, to keep men out of their urns, and discourse of human fragments in them, is not impertinent unto our profession; whose study is life and death, who daily behold examples of mortality, and of all men least need artificial mementos, or coffins by our bedside, to mind us of our graves. ”

“ Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation. This necessity and this instinct have created in man the organs of knowledge and given them such capacity as they possess. Man sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells that which it is necessary for him to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in order to preserve his life. ”

“ This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." ”

“ Certainly the desire for the preservation or recovery of youth, the attainment of immortality, the ensuring of a good harvest or even the felt need of spiritual regeneration are sufficiently strong and recurrent motives of the human mind to justify their frequent appearance in symbolic form. ”

“ In a fairer land by far than this world can boast, did they find the fountain of perpetual health. Beneath the branches of the tree of life, have they also sat and plucked its leaves for the healing of the nations given. ”

“ THE greatest blessing we enjoy is health, without it, wealth, honors, and every other consideration, would be insipid, and even irksome; the preservation of this state therefore, naturally concerns us all. ”

“ He said, ‘I have learned the science of restoring the dead to life.’ As soon as they heard this, they said, ‘If you have learned this, restore our beloved to life.’ He replied, ‘Make a heap of the ashes and bones, and I will restore it to life.’ They gathered together the ashes and bones. ”

“ Death and birth, the means of renewal and succession, bear the same relation to this body of society as the system of waste and reproduction do to the human body; the old and useless and decayed material is carried out, and fresh substituted, and thus the frame is renovated and rendered capable of ever-increasing happiness.... ”

“ During the third decade, when common sense, practical rationality, and just and noble views of life and its obligations shall have taken the place of their previous state—when cleanliness, light, air, and sunshine, daily-acted prayers instead of loud-mouthed lip-worship, constitute some of the elements of their religion—and when their bodies have become purified by proper living, eating, drinking and labor—their children will be born with larger brains, better bodies, nobler appearances ”

“ Our aim now—so far at all events as mere ideals go—is not to destroy life but to preserve it; we seek to improve the conditions of life and to render unnecessary the premature death of any human creature that has once drawn breath. ”

“ Along with the evolution of the ways of avoiding death should be considered also the gradual establishment of the length of life best suited to the welfare of the species, and the punctuation of the life-history to suit various conditions. ”

“ If then, so much care is bestowed on the formation and preservation of the most minute objects of the creation, how much more, have we not a right to infer, is appropriated to the preservation of the Being, formed in his own likeness, gifted with reason, and endowed with an immortal soul? ”

“ Being greatly interested in the subject before us, we are willing to labor hard, and sacrifice considerable, to establish a sound Science, in regard to the preservation and restoration of normal health. ”

“ But if civilization be favourable to the prolongation of life, must it not be favourable to all that blesses life,—to bodily health, to mental cheerfulness, to the capacities for enjoyment? And how much more grand, how much more sublime, becomes the prospect of gain, if we reflect that, to each life thus called forth, there is a soul, a destiny beyond the grave, multiplied immortalities! What an apology for the continued progress of States! ”

“ See how the germ which was planted before the law grew into the legal dispensation, and how when the leafage and fruitage of that dispensation grew old and withered, as things must grow old and perish, the living principle within took new and diviner form, suffered, as all divine things do, death and resurrection, and lived with a new and divine life in a new and regenerated world. ”

“ Or immortality endures."
The restoration of these pure laws and practices has commenced to improve or regenerate a race. A holy and temperate life; pure morals and manners; faith, hope, charity; cheerfulness, gentleness, integrity; intellectual development, pure truth, and knowledge; and above all, the operations of the Divine Spirit, will produce a race more beautiful in form and features, stronger, and more vigorous in constitution, happier in temperament and disposition, more intellectual, less vicious, and better prepared for long life and good days in their mortal sojourn. ”

“ Creation is developing itself gradually, peacefully, and nobly, as it began. Organisms are nourished; or, to express it differently, renew their molecules by a simple respiration, like your terrestrial trees, each leaf of which is a little stomach. In your precious country you can live a single day only on condition of killing. With you, the law of life is the law of death. ”

“ Having now shown clearly that the resurrection of the body is a complete restoration and reorganization of the physical system of man; and that the elements of which his body is composed are eternal in their duration; and that they form the tabernacle—the everlasting habitation of that spirit which animated them in this life; and that the spirits and bodies of men are of equal importance and destined to form an eternal and inseparable union with each other; we must now return to our research, as to the final destiny of the earth and its productions of animal and vegetable life. ”

“ My friends, let me very strongly recommend you to give up that hope of finding the principle of life in dead bodies; but to take all pains to keep the life pure and holy in the living bodies you have got; and, farther, not to seek your national amusement in the destruction of animals, nor your national safety in the destruction of men; but to look for all your joy to kindness, and for all your strength to domestic faith, and law of ancestral honour. ”

“ After the development of the idea of the perpetuation of life in another world, even though it were temporary or permanent, thoughts of preparing the body for its journey into the unknown land and for its residence thereafter caused people to place food and implements and clothing in the grave. ”

“ If perfection of climate is sought, perfect sanitation obtained, regularity, cleanliness, uprightness, temperance, and self-control practiced, if the bodily waste is supplied with nature's fruits, grains, vegetables, and herbs, if drinking is done at nature's fountain for thirst, life will be prolonged [Pg 68] to see the light in more than one century. Finally, add to that, if self is forgotten, and only the comfort of others remembered and regarded, life may be indefinitely prolonged. ”

“ Yet her aim is to protect life from the suicidal fertility of lives, so that the whole economy of Nature demands death in the highest interests of the future. When we die we do an act of charity to our children and grandchildren ”

“ And this should warn us all to consider well the lesson conveyed by this event—which is, that life and death are in the hands of God. He can protect us everywhere—in the cottage or the log-cabin, in the forest or the field; or he can take us away in the midst of power and pomp and riches. ”

“ Complete isolation, absolute silence, total abstinence from flesh meat, manual labour in the garden and graveyard, constant prayer in the church, or meditation in their cells, constitute their rule of life. ”

“ We are to expel and evaporate the warmth of the heart, the fancy's yearning, ... before we are fit for life.... No, I say, it is those very things we are to preserve. That's what we have got them for. ”

“ Those who are engaged in the development of the human family, and apparently unconsciously working out the designs of God in their persistent advocacy of human betterment, the destruction of inefficient environments, and the promotion of peace and good will, as well as the preservation of health, are numerous. Strikingly prominent are many of our Americans who seem to be blessed with an almost prophetic insight, and the ability to bring about changes in unpleasant conditions. ”

“ How marvellous then are those laws by which even the humblest types of organic existence are preserved, though born amidst the sources of their destruction, and by which a species of immortality is given to generations, floating, as it were, like evanescent bubbles on a stream raised from the deepest caverns of the earth, and instantly losing what may be called its spirit in the atmosphere! ”

“ The people felt great satisfaction in preserving and seeing the simulated features of their ancestors, whom they came to regard in some sense as contemporaneous. The welfare of the soul in the nether world depended upon the completeness of all the funeral processes. ”

“ Prepare to die, is not the exhortation in this Church and Kingdom; but prepare to live is the word with us, and improve all we can in the life hereafter, wherein we may enjoy a more exalted condition of intelligence, wisdom, light, knowledge, power, glory, and exaltation. Then let us seek to extend the present life to the uttermost, by observing every law of health, and by properly balancing labor, study, rest, and recreation, and thus prepare for a better life. ”

“ Nature, and a due attention to laws of heredity in life, will then rank in equal honour to our eyes with nurture or that attention to the environmental conditions of life which we already regard as so important. ”

“ How the vigorous life watches the passage of the liberated life out of its earthly environment! What a change is this! How important the knowledge of whither life tends! Here is shown the setting free of a disciplined spirit giving up its mortality for immortality,—the condition necessary to know God. ”