Religions have provided one answer. In his zeal of affirmation the prophet has declared that the individual lives after death; that in some unseen world completion shall be attained. Yet increasing millions find this explanation fading into unreality. If one living organism is perpetuated after its physical dissolution, why not another? We can account for every particle of life which the blossom loses by its death. Some has passed to the seed; the rest finds its chemical reaction, which in turn produces other forms of life--in entirely new individuals. To assert that the original blossom lives in an unseen form outside the realm of thought is preposterous. Why should it? Its function has been accomplished. The sentimentality behind this thinking is a weak prop for a vigorous mind. And exactly the same reasoning applies to all living organisms, including man. The more intelligent part of mankind has also outgrown the conception of a definite heaven. It is impossible to imagine a satisfactory heaven for the individual. A place where there is no strife, where everything is perfection and completion--what joy is to be found there? The essence of life as we know it is growth and survival; its happiness comes from the exercise of a function. Growth and survival postulate extinction; in heaven an individual would evaporate. Some thinkers have made a substitute "religion of humanity." They find solace in action tending to make the world a better place; they have been gratified by an imaginative conception of a future heaven on earth. As a religion of morality and action this is magnificent. Yet its dogma does not satisfy. A heaven on earth is no more conceivable than a heaven anywhere else. If we find our happiness in action, how shall our descendants find happiness when there are no more evils to conquer? Though a static condition of blessedness be the goal of humanitarian endeavor, it is the progress toward it which furnishes the joy. The Oriental thinker has looked for his answer in a different direction. Though the individual is partial and unsuccessful, life as a whole is always triumphant. Cannot the individual by contemplation identify himself with the world-soul? Can he not tack himself on to this all-inclusive life by denial and forgetfulness of himself? Brahmin saints have done so imaginatively. But such an answer is no answer. We are individuals, after all, and thinking of Nirvana will not rob us of our separate bodies and minds. Contemplation is not a substitute for living. The doctrine of transmigration is equally unsatisfying. If an individual never succeeds in any single life, innumerable chances will be mere repetitions of tragedy. The only hope of such a process would be a final "heaven on earth," which is just as inconceivable as that of the humanitarians.