Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While still a mere lad he had taken to the study of science as a duck takes to water,--no new discovery or even suggestion of a new discovery missed his instant and close attention. His avidity for learning was insatiable,--his intense and insistent curiosity on all matters of chemistry gave a knife-like edge to the quality of his brain, making it sharp, brilliant and incisive. To him the ordinary social and political interests of the world were simply absurd. The idea that the greater majority of men should be created for no higher purpose than those of an insect, just to live, eat, breed, and die, was to him preposterous.
"Think of it!" he would exclaim--"All this wondrous organisation of our planet for THAT! For a biped so stupid as to see nothing in his surroundings but conveniences for satisfying his stomach and his passions! We men are educated chiefly in order to learn how to make money, and all we can do with the money WHEN made, is to build houses to live in, eat as much as we want and more, and breed children to whom we leave all the stuff we have earned, and who either waste it or add to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are absolutely useless,--they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere. Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born--and at once, all who are merely Bodies leap up against it, like famished wolves, striving to tear it to pieces and devour it--if it survives the attack its worth is only recognised long after its owner has perished. The whole scheme is manifestly unintelligent and ludicrous, but it is not intended to be so--of that I am sure. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE!"
When urged to explain what he conceived as this "something else," he would answer-"There has always been 'something else' in our environment,--something that stupid humanity has taken centuries to discover. Sound-waves for example--light-rays,--electricity--these have been freely at our service from the beginning. Electricity might have been used ages ago, had not dull-witted man refused to find anything better for lighting purposes than an oil-lamp or a tallow candle! If, in past periods, he had been told 'there is something else'--he would have laughed his informant to scorn. So with our blundering methods of living--'there is something else'--not after death, but NOW and HERE. We are going about in the darkness with a candle when a great force of wider light is all round us, only awaiting connection and application to our uses."