MAN AND THEMETHOD OFEVOLUTION 131
earth life!
Such queries are based upon misunderstandings of
several kinds. In the first place, let us realize and engrave it
deep upon the tablets of our memory thatthe purpose of life
is not happiness, but experience. Sorrow and pain are our
most benevolent teachers, while the joys of life are but
fleeting.
This seems a stern doctrine and the heart cries out
passionately at even the thought that it may possibly be true.
Nevertheless, it is true, and upon examination it will be
found not such a stern doctrine after all.
Consider the blessings of pain. If we could place our
hand upon a hot stove and feel no pain, the hand might be
allowed to remain until it and perhaps the arm were burned
away, without our knowing anything about it until too late to
save them. It is the pain resulting from the contact with the
hot stove which makes us snatch our hand away before
serious damage is done. Instead of losing the hand, we
escape with a blister which quickly heals. This is an
illustration from the Physical World. We find that the same
principle applies in the Moral and Mental Worlds. If we
outrage morality the pangs of conscience bring us pain that
will prevent us from repeating the act and if we do not heed
the first lesson, nature will give us harder and harder
experiences until at last the fact is forced into our
consciousness that “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
This will continu e unt il at last we are forced t o turn in a new
direction and take a step onward toward a better life.
Experience is “knowledge of the effects which follow
acts.” This is the object of life, together with the
develop ment of “Will,” which is the force whereby we apply
the results of experience. Experience must be gained, but we