So long as the several parts all act together, in concord and due regard to one another and the general purposes of the organism, there is health and efficiency. But when from any cause discord arises, illness supervenes. Disease is lack of comfort and harmony.

In the brain and nervous system the cells are grouped in their action according to the particular functions which they are called upon to perform. It is in this way that we are able to see, to taste, to smell, to feel, and to hear. It is also in this way we are able to recall past experiences, to remember facts and figures, and so on.

In mental and physical health these various groups of neurons work in fine harmony, but in disease they do not. In normal conditions the ego holds all these individual cells and groups, as we as system of cells, in harmonious and co-ordinate action.

Disease represents dissociated organic action; certain systems or groups, each of which is made up of a vast number of microscopic cells, begin functioning independently, and hence inharmoniously; and thus upset the tone of the whole organism. A single organ or system can thus get out of tune with the rest of the body and do serious harm. this is one kind of disease.

In a federation of any sort, efficiency and concord of action depend upon the strength and confidence accorded the central administration of its affairs; and just in proportion to the degree of failure to maintain these conditions are discord and confusion sure to ensue.

Nels Quevli makes this clear in “Cell Intelligence;” he says, “The intelligence of man is the intelligence possessed by the cells in his brain. If man is intelligent and by virtue thereof is able to combine and arrange matter and force so as to effect structures such as houses and railroads, why is not the cell also intelligent when he is able to direct the forces of nature so as to effect the structures we see such as plants and animals. The cell is not compelled to act by reason of any chemical and mechanical force, any more than is man. He acts by reason of will and judgment of his own. He is a separate living animal. Bergson in his “Creative Evolution” seems to see in matter and life a creative energy. If we stood at a distance watching a skyscraper gradually grow into completeness, we would say there must be some creative energy back of it, pushing the construction and, if we could never get near enough to see the men and builders at work, we could have no other idea of how that skyscraper came into existence except that it was caused by some creative energy.

The cell is an animal, very highly organized and specialized. Take the single cell called amoeba for instance. He has no machinery with which he can manufacture starch. He does, however, carry with him building material with which he can in an emergency save his life by covering himself with a coat of armor. Other cells carry with them a structure which is called chromatophore. With this instrument, these cells are able to manufacture starch from the crude substances of earth, air and water by the aid of sunlight. From these facts, it must appear evident to the reader that the cell is a very highly organized and specialized individual, and that to look at him from the point of view of being mere matter and force is the same as to compare the actions of a stone rolling down a hill with that of an automobile moving over a smooth pavement. One is compelled to move by reason of the force of gravitation, while the other moves by virtue of the intellect that guides it. The structures of life, like plants and animals, are built from the materials taken from the earth, air, and water, just as are the structures man builds, like railroads and skyscrapers. If we were asked how it is possible for man to effect the construction of these railroads and buildings, we would say that it is by reason of the fact that he is an intelligent being.

If the cell has gone through the same process of social organization and evolution as man, why is it not also the same intelligent being as man? Did you ever stop to think what takes place when the surface of the body is cut or bruised? The white blood cells or corpuscles, as they are called, who are the general caretakers of the body, whose duty it is to look after everything in general, such as the fighting of bacteria and disease germs and the general repair work, will sacrifice their own lives by thousands if necessary to save the body. They live in the body, enjoying complete liberty. They do not float in the blood stream except when in a hurry to get somewhere, but move around everywhere as separate independent beings to see that everything goes right. If a bruise or cut happens, they are at once informed, and rush to the spot by thousands and direct the repair work and if necessary they change their own occupation and take a different job, that of making connective tissue in order to bind the tissues together. In nearly every open sore, bruise or cut, they are killed in great numbers in their faithful effort to repair and close up the wound. A text book on physiology briefly speaks of it as follows:

“When the skin is injured the white blood cells form new tissue upon the surface, while the epithelium spreads over it from the edges, stopping the growth and completing the healing processes.”

There seems to be no particular center in the body around which intelligence revolves. Every cell seems to be a center of intelligence and knows what its duties are wherever it is placed and wherever we find it. Every citizen of the cell republic is an intelligent independent existence, and all are working together for the welfare of all. Nowhere can we find more absolute sacrifice of the lives of the individuals to the general welfare of all than we do in the cell republic. The results cannot be obtained in any other way nor at any less cost of individual sacrifice, so it is necessary to their social existence. The principle of individual sacrifice to common welfare has been accepted and agreed up as the right thing and as their common duty, impartially distributed among them, and they perform their allotted work and duties regardless of their own individual comfort.

Mr. Edison says, “I believe that our bodies are made up of myriads of units of life. Our body is not itself the unit of life or a unit of life. Let me give you as an example the S. S. Mauretania.”

“The ‘Mauretania’ is not herself a living thing--it is the men in her that are alive. If she is wrecked on the coast, for instance, the men get out, and when the men get out it simply means that the ‘life units’ leave the ship. And so in the same way a man is not ‘dead’ because his body is buried and the vital principle, that is, the ‘life units,’ have left the body.

“Everything that pertains to life is still living and cannot be destroyed. Everything that pertains to life is still subject to the laws of animal life. We have myriads of cells and it is the inhabitants in these cells, inhabitants which themselves are beyond the limits of the microscope, which vitalize our body.

“To put it another way, I believe that these life-units of which I have spoken band themselves together in countless millions and billions in order to make a man. We have too facilely assumed that each one of us is himself a unit. This, I am convinced is wrong, even by the high-powered microscope, and so we have assumed that the unit is the man, which we can see, and have ignored the existence of the real life units, which are those we cannot see.”

“No man today can set the line as to where ‘life’ begins and ends. Even in the formation of crystals, we see a definitely ordered plan of work. Certain solutions will always form a particular kind of crystal without variation. It is not impossible that these life entities are at work in the mineral and plant as in what we call the ‘animal’ world.”

We have seen something of the chemist, something of his laboratory, something of his system of communication.

What about the product? This is a very practical age, an age of commercialism, if you please. If the chemist produces nothing of value, nothing which can be converted into cash, we are not interested.

But, fortunately the chemist in this case produces an article which has the highest cash value of any article known to man.

He provides the one thing which all the world demands, something which can be realized upon anywhere, at any time; it is not a slow asset; on the contrary, its value is recognized in every marked.

The product is thought; thought rules the world; thought rules every Government, every bank, every industry, every person and everything in existence, and is differentiated from everything else, simply and only because of thought.

Every person is what he is because of his method of thinking, and men and nations differ from each other only because they think differently.

What then is thought? Thought is the product of the chemical laboratory possessed by every thinking individual; it is the blossom, the combined intelligence which is the result of all previous thinking processes; it is the fruit and contains the best of all that the individual has to give.

There is nothing material about a thought, and yet no man would give up his ability to think for all the gold in Christendom; it is therefore of more value than anything which exists. As it is not material it must be spiritual. Here then is an explanation of the wonderful value of thought. Thought is a spiritual activity; in fact, it is the only activity which the spirit possesses. Spirit is the creative principle of the Universe, as a part must be the same in kind and quality as the whole, and can differ only in degree, thought must be creative also.

The Laboratory

The art of chemistry cannot proceed without a plant, or work-shop, and one of the most interesting features of the human system is its series of manufacturing plants in which are produced the chemical agents necessary to mobilize the constituents of food. And it is a part of the fine natural economy that the secretions containing these chemical agents should serve several other purposes also. In general, each may be said to have an alterative effect upon the others, or at least upon the activities of the other plants; also they act upon the inward bound nerve paths as exciters of effects in both the conscious and the subconscious activities.

Radiant energy, whether consciously or subconsciously released from the body, becomes the medium of sensory impressions that flash back to the perceptive centers and there set up reactions which are interpreted by these centers according to their stage of development of self, and therefore they interpret these messages exactly as they are received, without attempt to “think” about them, or to analyze them. The process is as mechanical as an impression made by the actinic rays of the sun on a photographic plate.

The general principle by which an idea is preserved is vibratory like all other phenomena of nature. Every thought causes vibration that will continue to expand and contract in wave circles, like the waves started by a stone dropped in a pool of water. Waves from other thoughts may countered it, or it may finally succumb of its own inanition.

Thought will instantly set in motion the finest of spiritual magnetism, and this motion will be communicated to the heavier and coarser densities, and will eventually affect the physical matter of the body.

Life is not created--it simply IS. All nature is animate with this force we call ‘life.’” The phenomena of life on this physical plane, with which we are chiefly concerned, are produced by the involution of “energy” into “matter,” and matter is, itself, an involution of energy.

But when the stage of matter is reached in the process of Nature’s involution, matter then begins to evolve forms under the action upon it and within it. So that growth and life are the results of a simultaneous integration of matter and energy. Evolution starts with the lowest form of matter, and works upward through refining processes to serve as a matrix of energy.

The internal secretions constitute and determine much of the inherited powers of the individual and their development. They control physical and mental growth, and all metabolic processes of fundamental importance. They dominate all the vital functions of man. they co-operate in an intimate relationship which may be compared to an interlocking directorate. A derangement of their functions, causing an insufficiency of them, an excess or an abnormality upsets the entire equilibrium of the body, with transformed effect upon the mind and the organs. Blood chemistry of our time is a marvel undreamed of a generation ago.

These achievements are a perfect example of accomplished fact contradicting all former prediction and criticism. One of the greatest advances of modern medicine has been the study of the processes and secretions of the hitherto obscure ductless glands; endocrinology, as this study is called, has thrown much valuable light upon certain abnormal physical conditions about which science had until now been in the dark. We now know that most of the freaks of nature we see on exhibition are such owing to endocrine disturbance--the disturbance of the ductless glands. The bearded lady, a victim of pogoniasis; the victims of obesity and of skeletonization; of acromegalis, or giantism; of micromegalie or liliputianism--all such evolutional deviations are due to subnormalities or abnormalities of the chemical elements which the glands produce and send into the blood-stream.