lly ceases to be. In plain language,
apathy, inaction, idleness, uselessness, is the road to degeneration.
On the other hand, aspiration and activity mean growth, development,
power.

So we grow, physically, mentally and morally, by activity, by exercise
of the organs or the faculties we desire to possess. It is only by the
constant exercise of these things that we can grow at all. When this
great law of nature is understood we see at once how it is that life
is full of trouble; why it is that the whole visible world seems to be
designed to keep us constantly at work physically and mentally, to
challenge our resourcefulness in improving our physical, social and
political conditions, to continually try our patience and to forever
test our courage. It is the way of development. It is the price of
progress.

The universe is a training school for evolving intelligence--a vast
gymnasium for the development of moral fibre. We become mentally
clever by playing at the game of life. We match our courage against
its adversities and acquire fearlessness. We try our optimism against
its disappointments and learn cheerfulness. We pit our patience
against its failures and gain persistence. We are torn from the
pinnacle of ambition by opponents and learn toleration of others. We
fall from the heights of vanity and pride, and learn to be modest and
humble. We encounter pain and sorrow and learn sympathy with
suffering. It is only by such experiences that we can grow to rounded
measure. It is only in an environment thus adapted to our spiritual
development that we can evolve the latent powers within us.

Such is the universe in which we find ourselves and from it there is
no escape. No man can avoid life--not even the foolish one who, when
the difficulties before him appear for the moment overwhelming, tries
to escape them by suicide. A man cannot die. He can only choose how he
will live. He may either helplessly drift through the world suffering
from all the ills and evils that make so many unhappy or he may choose
the method of conscious evolution that alone makes life truly
successful. We may be either the suffering slaves of nature or the
happy masters of her laws.

Now, all powers possessed by any human being, no matter how exalted
his position in evolution, or how sublime his spiritual power, are
latent in all human beings and can, in time, be developed and brought
into action. Of course there is no magic rule by which the ig