l that it
has done wrong. And when one does wrong, punishment follows--one must
learn to expect that.

This same principle confronts the individual in later years,--all
through life. First the nurse and mother; then the father and other
members of the family; then the neighbors and people at large; the
police and the laws. All these embody the same principle, they represent
greater force, without the individual, which interferes with its
instincts, its pleasures, its wishes, which forbids certain
things--declares they are wrong--and punishes, if they are done.

On top of this comes the church and religion. In a more exalted way,
appealing to the imagination and the inner spirit, they nevertheless
apply the same principle. Certain things are sinful and wicked, certain
instincts and desires are temptations, contrived by an evil spirit. If
temptations are yielded to, if evil is committed, punishment is sure to
follow, if not in this world, then in another, a world beyond.

In this connection, it is not a question of any particular church, or
creed, or any particular religion, but simply of the fundamental idea of
all churches and all religions,--the idea that somewhere, somehow, in a
spiritual world of some sort, good will be rewarded and evil punished.

Crudely and briefly stated, it is the same fundamental principle that
begins with the child and nursemaid, and runs up through the highest
forms of church and religious appeal. This is good, you are allowed and
urged to do it, and it will bring reward; that is bad, you are commanded
to resist it, and if you yield, it will bring punishment.

This, then, is what we have called the second consideration in the
problem of life.

There is another consideration, of a different order, which exerts an
influence on the acts of an individual; which causes it to repress
certain appetites and desires, on the one hand, and urges it, on the
other hand, to do certain things against its instincts and inclination.

This third consideration is the influence of reason and experience.

A crude example will suffice to illustrate the principle. A certain
individual eats a plate of sliced cucumbers. Their taste is delicious
and the sensation most enjoyable. An acute indigestion follows, however,
with great discomfort and distress. On a later occasion, another plate
of fresh cucumbers is so tempting that the experiment is tried again,
with the same results.

Before long, this individual