_expect_ to make over and control our
world." We not only assume it is possible, we assume it is best.

What is democracy but a form of this impulse, says Professor George
Plimpton Adams, "bidding man not to content himself with any political
order thrust upon him, but actively to construct that order so that it
does respond to his own nature"?

"Not contemplation ... but creative activity," that is our modern
attitude.

Well, it's all very interesting.

Will and Wisdom are both mighty leaders. Our times worship Will.

[Illustration: Will and Wisdom]

How It Looks to a Fish

The most ordinary steamship agent, talking to peasants in Europe, can
describe America in such a way that those peasants will start there at
once. But the most gifted preacher can't get men to hurry to heaven.

All sorts of prophets have dreamed of a heaven, and they have imagined
all kinds; they have put houris in the Mahometan's paradise, and swords
in Valhalla. But in spite of having carte blanche they have never
invented a good one.

A man sits in his pew, hearing about harps and halos and hymns, and when
it's all over he goes home and puts on his old wrapper. "I suppose I can
stand it," he thinks. "I've stood corns and neuritis. But I just hate
the idea of floating around any such region."

[Illustration: "I've stood corns and neuritis--"]

Some persons may want to go to heaven so as to keep out of hell, or to
get away from misery here--if they are in great enough misery. Others
think of it as a place to meet friends in, or as a suitable destination
for relatives. But the general idea is it's like being cast away in the
tropics: the surroundings are gorgeous, and it's pleasant and warm--but
not home.

It seems too bad that heaven should always be somehow repugnant, and
unfit as it were for human habitation. Isn't there something we can do
about it?

I fear there is not.

[Illustration: "But I just hate the idea of floating"]

Assuming that we are immortal, what happens to a man when he dies? It is
said by some that at first the surroundings in his new life seem
shadowy, but after a bit they grow solid; and then it is the world left
behind that seems vague. You lose touch with it and with those whom you
knew there--except when they think of you. When they think of you,
although you can see them, and feel what they're thinking, it isn't like
hearing the words that they say, or their voices; it's not like looking
over t