But the questions of where human life came from, or where it will end, are quite apart from the question of the value and capabilities of human life now. That there are immense possibilities in this life none but a fool will deny. The world is full of strange and curious things, and its pleasures undoubtedly outweigh its pains in the experience of normal man or woman. But the relations between ourselves and others remain completely unaffected by the termination of existence at the grave, or its continuation beyond. It is quite a defensible proposition that life is not worth living. So is the reverse of the proposition. But it is nonsense to say that life is a "paltry thing" merely because it ends at the grave. It is unrestricted egotism manifesting itself in the form of religious conviction. One might as well argue that a sunset ceases to be beautiful because it does not continue all night. If I cannot live for ever, then is the universe a failure! That is really all that the religious argument amounts to. And so to state it, to reduce it to plain terms, and divest it of its disguising verbiage, almost removes the need for further refutation. But it is seldom stated in so plain and so unequivocal a manner. It is accompanied with much talk of growth, of an evolutionary purpose, of ruined lives made good, thus: Seeing that man is the goal towards which everything has tended from the beginning, seeing that the same eternal and infinite Energy has laboured through the ages at the production of man, and man is the heir of the ages, nothing conceivable seems too great or glorious to believe concerning his destiny.... If there is no limit to human growth in knowledge and wisdom, in love and constructive power, in beauty and joy, we are invested with a magnificent worth and dignity. So fallacy and folly run on. What, for example, does anyone mean by man as the goal towards which everything has tended since the beginning? Whatever truth there is in the statement applies to all things without exception. It is as true of the microbe as it is of man. If the "infinite and eternal Energy" laboured to produce man, it laboured also to produce the microbe which destroys him. The one is here as well as the other; and one can conceive a religious microbe thanking an almighty one for having created it, and declaring that unless it is to live for ever in some microbic heaven, with a proper supply of human beings for its nourishment, the whole scheme of creation is a failure. It is quite a question of the point of view. As a matter of fact there are no "ends" in nature. There are only results, and each result becomes a factor in some further result. It is human folly and ignorance which makes an end of a consequence.