Esoteric anthropology (the mysteries of man) : a comprehensive and confidential treatise on the structure, functions, passional attractions, and perversions, true and false physical and social conditions, and the most intimate relations of men and women. Anatomical, physiological, pathological, therapeutical and obstetrical, hygienic and hydropathic / by T.L. Nichols.

Thomas Low Nichols

Date:: [1873]

Credit: Esoteric anthropology (the mysteries of man) : a comprehensive and confidential treatise on the structure, functions, passional attractions, and perversions, true and false physical and social conditions, and the most intimate relations of men and women. Anatomical, physiological, pathological, therapeutical and obstetrical, hygienic and hydropathic / by T.L. Nichols. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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triumphant soul may be serene and happy, rejoicing in its change to a higher and brighter sphere of existence. Life has its objects and uses, and premature mortal- ity must therefore be a loss, and a matter of pain and sorrow. The love of life, the instinct of self-preserva- tion, the dread of early and unnatural death, are im- planted in us by the Creator. But the calm death which follows at the close of a long and well spent life, is the most beautiful thing in our earthly existence. We must hope for a state of earthly life—a condition of individual development, and social harmony—in which long lives and happy deaths will be the rule, and not the exception ; but, in our present state, an early death is not without its compensations to the one who dies, and its consolations to survivors. If the sou] enters the next sphere of existence under certain dis- advantages, from the lack of that development and discipline which this earthly life was intended to give, it may also have escaped many depravations. Life, in its present discordant and diseased state, so full of poverties and miseries, offers little temptation to the soul to stay ; still, it is our duty to live out our terms of life ; to battle for the right; to try to make life for others more endurable ; to work for the great future which God has in store for humanity ; and, in doing this, to enjoy all of happiness that belongs to such a life. I have no right to destroy my bodily organisa- tion. I must use it with economy, and to the best advantage. Whenever death comes, by any unavoid- able accident, providentially, or in the course of nature, welcome death !—welcome all spheres of action, and of enjoyment that lie beyond ! So far from death be- ing an evil, in its natural order, the greatest imaginable evil would be not to be permitted to die. Continued earthly existence is an idea almost as repugnant as an- nihilation. And a feeling of the unnaturalness, and therefore a

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