or such other causes. The sense of a life-task consummated, of the
worthlessness of one's existence, if strongly realized, produced death
as surely as poison or a rifle-bullet. On the other hand, a stern
determination to continue to live, has, in fact, carried many through
the crises of the most severe diseases, in perfect safety.

First, then, must be the determination--the Will--the conviction of
certainty, to survive and continue.* Without that, all else is useless.
And to be efficient for the purpose, it must be, not only a passing
resolution of the moment, a single fierce desire of short duration, but
a settled and continued strain, as nearly as can be continued and
concentrated without one single moment's relaxation. In a word, the
would-be "Immortal" must be on his watch night and day, guarding self
against-himself. To live--to live--to live--must be his unswerving
resolve. He must as little as possible allow himself to be turned aside
from it. It may be said that this is the most concentrated form of
selfishness,--that it is utterly opposed to our Theosophic professions
of benevolence, and disinterestedness, and regard for the good of
humanity. Well, viewed in a short-sighted way, it is so. But to do
good, as in everything else, a man must have time and materials to work
with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of powers by
which infinitely more good can be done than without them.

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* Col. Olcott has epigrammatically explained the creative or rather the
re-creative power of the Will, in his "Buddhist Catechism." He there
shows--of course, speaking on behalf of the Southern Buddhists--that
this Will to live, if not extinguished in the present life, leaps over
the chasm of bodily death, and recombines the Skandhas, or groups of
qualities that made up the individual into a new personality. Man is,