The belief in immortality and the wish for it will die {150} out very slowly. The vague appetite for another life will persist as an undercurrent of half-understood desire for a good whose nature has not been clearly thought out. What men really want is an eternal youth in an environment which gives opportunity for self-expression and pleasant companionship. It means rest to the weary, new horizons to those who wish to achieve, a release from fetters to those who have felt themselves oppressed. What a quiet charm there is in such an uncritical play of the fancy! But is it anything more than daydreaming? Can our musings become definite without revealing themselves as fancies? Alas! our souls are old and written upon, and we would no longer be the same were these marks removed. They have a meaning for us and we cannot wish them away. If, for a forgetful moment, we envy the smooth cheeks of a youth, the envy is but momentary. What we desire is his abundant energy and hopefulness with our own humorous and wiser self in command. How completely we are parts of life as it is lived upon this planet! Desires, affections, passions, ideas, habits, all, when analyzed, point to the human organism and its environment. Our personality is like a plant which draws its nourishment from what surrounds it. Remove the old peasant from his fields and plow-fellows, and he will lose interest in life. Remove the business man from the mart and counter, and he will become restless. How can we expect to revive a zest in life by cutting the grown personality loose from what it has fed upon? It is psychologically absurd and betrays that tendency to abstract thinking which is so widespread. The human personality is a function of this sub-lunar life, of this organism, of this sky, of this {151} soil, of this restless struggle with nature. Immortality is an impossible surgery.