THE ATTRACTION
OF ASPIRATION
WHY may we not maintain
a level of serenity of mind? Why are we
so subject to periods of depression?
It is because, no matter
how well-positioned you are in accord
with your ideal of living, you are still
to a greater or less degree affected by
the discordance which reigns about you.
Are you gentle and humane toward the animal
creation? The wild birds, your free pets
who come and build their nests in the
grove, are murdered for sport or gain
before your eyes and you are quite helpless
to prevent it. You live amid a scene of
incessant cruelty and slaughter. The animals
fostered by man's care are bred under
artificial conditions and thereby developed
into unnatural and really unhealthy growths
for his amusement or profit. This refers
to all manner of "fancy breeding."
Nature when left alone does best for bird
or animal, and the birds or animals have
their individual rights as well as man.
A strained and morbid taste will grow
an enlarged and diseased liver in a goose
to make thereof a certain dish. Your race
are so growing disease all about you.
Disease means mental as well as physical
unhappiness. Directly and indirectly this
unhappiness affects you.
The finer your organization
and the more open is it to a finer life,
the more easily annoyed is it here by
the many ills about it. You can hardly
go abroad without suffering mental or
physical pain.
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