arding it, we will
find ourselves in a position to begin to work out of it, and thereby
truly work out our salvation, even if with fear and trembling. I have
said in a previous talk that, judging by the deductions of the
physical scientists, everything seems about to leave the material
basis and turn into vibrations, and 'man changes with velocity' of
these. They tell us that all life depends upon water; that life began,
eons ago, in the primeval sea. True, the human sense of existence, as
I have said, began in the dark, primeval sea of mist, the deep and
fluid mortal mind, so-called. And that sense of existence most
certainly is dependent upon the fluid of mortal mind. Bichat has said
that 'life is the sum of the forces that resist death.' Spencer has
defined life as the 'continuous adjustment of internal to external
relations.' Very good, as applied to the human sense of life. The
human mind makes multitudes of mental concepts, and then struggles
incessantly to adjust itself to them, and at length gives up the
struggle, hopelessly beaten. Scientists tell us that life is due to a
continuous series of bodily ferments. The body is in a constant state
of ferment, and that gives rise to life. Good! We know that the human
mind is in a state of incessant ferment. The human mind is a
self-centered mass of writhing, seething, fermenting material thought.
And that fermentation is outwardly manifested in its concept of body,
and its material environment. The scientists themselves are rapidly
pushing matter back into the realm of the human mind. Bodily states
are becoming recognized as manifestations of mental states--not vice
versa, as has been ignorantly believed for ages. A prominent physician
told me the other day that many a condition of nervous prostration now
could be directly traced to selfishness. We know that hatred and anger
produce fatal poisons. The rattlesnake is a splendid example of that.
I am told that its poison and the white of an egg are formed of
_exactly the same amounts of the same elements_. The difference in
effect is the thought lying back of each."

"Well!" exclaimed Doctor Siler. "You don't pretend that the snake
thinks and hates--"

"Doctor," said Hitt, "for thousands upon thousands of years the human
race has been directing hatred and fear-thoughts toward the snake. Is
it any wonder that the snake is now poisonous? That it now reflects
back that poisonous thought to mankind?"

"But some are not p