Chapter 35

“A CERTAIN POINT WITHIN A SPHERE.”--MEN ARE AS PARASITES ON THE ROOF OF EARTH.

I realized again, as I had so many times before, that it was useless for me to rebel. “The self-imposed mystery of a sacrificed life lies before me,” I murmured, “and there is no chance to retrace my footsteps. The ‘Beyond’ of the course that I have voluntarily selected, and sworn to follow, is hidden; I must nerve myself to pursue it to the bitter end, and so help me God, and keep me steadfast.”

“Well said,” he replied; “and since you have so wisely determined, I am free to inform you that these new obligations, like those you have heretofore taken, contain nothing which can conflict with your duty to God, your country, your neighbor, or yourself. In considering the phenomena presented by the suspension of the act of breathing, it should occur to you that where little labor is to be performed, little consumption of energy is required. Where there is such a trifling destruction of the vital force (not mind force) as at present is the case with us, it requires but slight respiration to retain the normal condition of the body. On earth’s surface the act of respiration alone consumes by far the larger proportion of vital energy, and the muscular exertion involved thereby necessitates a proportionate amount of breathing in order that breath itself may continue. This act of respiration is the result of one of the conditions of surface earth life, and consumes most of the vital force. If men would think of this, they would understand how paradoxical it is for them to breathe in order to live, when the very act of respiration wears away their bodies and shortens their lives more than all else they have to do, and without adding to their mental or physical constitution in the least. Men are conversant with physical death as a constant result of suspended respiration, and with respiration as an accompaniment of life, which ever constant and connected conditions lead them to accept that the act of breathing is a necessity of mortal life. In reality, man occupies an unfortunate position among other undeveloped creatures of external earth; he is an animal, and is constitutionally framed like the other animals about him. He is exposed to the warring elements, to the vicious attacks of savage beasts and insidious parasites, and to the inroads of disease. He is a prey to the elementary vicissitudes of the undesirable exposure in which he exists upon the outer surface of our globe, where all is war, even among the forces of nature about him. These conditions render his lot an unhappy one indeed, and in ignorance he overlooks the torments of the weary, rasping, endless slavery of respiration in the personal struggle he has to undergo in order to retain a brief existence as an organized being. Have you never thought of the connected tribulations that the wear and tear of respiration alone inflict upon the human family? The heaving of the chest, the circulation of the blood, the throbbing of the heart, continue from mortal birth until death. The heart of man forces about two and one-half ounces of blood with each pulsation. At seventy beats per minute this amounts to six hundred and fifty-six pounds per hour, or nearly eight tons per day. The lungs respire over one thousand times an hour, and move over three thousand gallons of air a day. Multiply these amounts by three hundred and sixty-five, and then by seventy, and you have partly computed the enormous life-work of the lungs and heart of an adult. Over two hundred thousand tons of blood, and seventy-five million gallons of air have been moved by the vital force. The energy thus consumed is dissipated. No return is made for the expenditure of this life force. During the natural life of man, more energy is consequently wasted in material transformation resulting from the motion of heart and lungs, than would be necessary to sustain the purely vital forces alone for a thousand years. Besides, the act of respiration which man is compelled to perform in his exposed position, necessitates the consumption of large amounts of food, in order to preserve the animal heat, and replace the waste of a material body that in turn is worn out by these very movements. Add this waste of energy to the foregoing, and then you will surely perceive that the possible life of man is also curtailed to another and greater degree in the support of the digestive part of his organism. His spirit is a slave to his body; his lungs and heart, on which he imagines life depends, are unceasing antagonists of life. That his act of breathing is now a necessity upon the surface of the earth, where the force of gravity presses so heavily, and where the elements have men at their command, and show him no mercy, I will not deny; but it is exasperating to contemplate such a waste of energy, and corresponding loss of human life.”