The Book of Life

There remains the question of how to break the fast, and this is the most important part of the problem. You may undo all the good of your fast by breaking it wrong, and you are...

It is my purpose in this chapter to lay down a few general principles to aid you in the practical problem of selecting the best diet for yourself. But it must be made clear at t...

I think there is no more important single question about health than the question of how much food we should eat. It is one about which there is a great deal of controversy, eve...

A few years ago there died an old gentleman who had devoted some twenty years of his life to teaching people to chew their food. Horace Fletcher was his name, and his ideas beca...

Let us now take up the question of survival of personality after death from the strictly scientific point of view; let us consider what facts we have, and the indications they s...

The reader who has followed our argument this far will understand that we are seldom willing to think of the body as separate from the mind. The body is a machine, to be sure, b...

It is our plan, so far as possible, to discuss the problems of the mind in one section of this book, and the problems of the body in another; but just as we found that we could...

Students of the body assure us that every particle of matter which composes it is changed in the course of seven years. It is obvious that everything that is a part of the body...

The first and most dreadful of capitalism's diseases is war, and the economic changes here outlined have placed war, along with piracy and slavery, among the half-forgotten nigh...

We have made the point about evolution, that it may go forward or it may go backward. There is no guarantee in nature that because a thing changes, it must necessarily become be...

Our first task is to consider how people actually behave in the matter of sex--as distinguished from the way they pretend to behave. The first and most necessary step in the cur...

We have next to consider the various human ailments, what causes them, and how they can be remedied. As it happens, I know of a cure that comes pretty near being that impossible...

Pondering the subject of this chapter, I went for a stroll in the country, and seating myself in a lonely place, became lost in thought; when suddenly my eye was caught by somet...

In discussing the question of health, we have given the greater part of the space to the subject of diet, for the reason that experience has convinced us that diet is two-thirds...

One of the most common methods of exploring the subconscious mind is the method of automatic writing. I have never tried this myself, but tens of thousands of people are sitting...

As we explore the deeps of the subconsciousness, our own and other people's, we find ourselves confronting the strange question: Is it all our own mind, and that of other living...

We have now completed a brief survey of the mind and its powers. Whatever we may have proved or failed to prove, this much we may say with assurance: the reader who has followed...

What, in the most elemental form, is sex? It is a difference of function which makes it necessary for two organisms to take part in the reproduction of the species. The purpose,...

If the argument of the preceding chapter is sound, human morality is not a fixed and eternal set of laws, but is, like everything else in the world, a product of natural evoluti...

I assume that you have followed my argument, and are prepared to consider seriously whether it may be possible to establish love in marriage as the sex institution of civilized...

The importance of the mind in matters of health becomes clearer when we understand that what we commonly call our minds--the mental states which confront us day by day in our co...

We have discussed what is happening to our young people; let us next consider what our mature people are doing. Having mentioned conditions in England, I will give a glimpse of...

How is it that the rich are becoming richer? The single taxer answers that it is by monopoly of the land, the natural sources of wealth; the Socialist answers that it is by the...

In discussing the important question of exercise, there is one fundamental fact to begin with: that our present civilization divides men sharply into two classes, those who do n...

Assuming the argument of the preceding chapters to be accepted, it appears that human life is in part at least a product of human will, guided by human intelligence. Man finds h...

I realize that all these sex problems are complicated. Every case is individual, and in no two cases can you give exactly the same explanation. But it is my thesis that whatever...

In the beginning man got his living by hunting and fishing. Then he took to keeping flocks and herds, and later by slow stages he settled down to agriculture. With the introduct...

So far in this discussion we have assumed that love means monogamous love. We did so, for the reason that we could not consider every question at once. But we have promised to d...

Someone wrote me the other day, asking, "When is the best time to acquire knowledge?" I answer, "The time is now." It is easier to learn things when you are young, but you canno...

And now let us consider the process of industrial evolution. We shall find it to be exactly the same thing, reproducing the changes in another field of activity. You may picture...

I have before me as I write a newspaper article by Robert Blatchford, a great writer and great man. He is dealing with the subject of "Love and Marriage," and his doctrine is su...

I have shown how economic forces in our society make for later and later marriage; and at the present time economic forces are so overwhelming that all other forces are hardly w...

Karl Kautsky, intellectual leader of the German Social-democracy, gives in his book, "The Social Revolution," a useful formula as to the organization of the future society. This...

Some years ago I used to know an ardent single tax propagandist who found my way of arguing intensely irritating, because, as he phrased it, I had "no principles." We would be d...

If I could, I would begin this book by telling you what Life is. But unfortunately I do not know what Life is. The only consolation I can find is in the fact that nobody else kn...

I am aware that the suggestion of paying for the industries we socialize will sound tame and uninspiring to a lot of ardent young radicals of my acquaintance. They will shake th...

Just as human beings through wrong religious beliefs torture one another, and wreck their lives and happiness; just as through wrong eating and other physical habits they make d...

The great majority of people are brought up to believe that some particular set of dogmas are objects of faith, and that there are penalties more or less severe for the applicat...

The writer of this book has been in this world some forty-two years. That may not seem long to some, but it is long enough to have made many painful mistakes, and to have learne...

We have considered the sex disorders of our age and their causes. We have now to grope our way towards a basis of sanity and health in these vital matters.

The Russian revolution has familiarized us with the word Communism. In the beginning of the revolutionary movement Communism denoted what we now call Socialism; for example, the...

The United States government is by far the largest single business enterprise in the United States; and a study of congressional appropriations in 1920, made by the United State...

The writer of this book has been watching the social process for twenty years, trying to figure out one thing--how the change from competition to co-operation can be brought abo...

We have now to consider, briefly, the history of man as a social being, the groups he has formed, and the changes in his group systems. Everything in life grows, and human socie...

Once upon a time I knew an Anarchist shoemaker, the same who had me sent to jail for playing tennis on Sunday, as I have narrated in "The Brass Check." I remember arguing with h...

In the state of nature you find every creature living a precarious existence, incessantly beset by enemies; and the creature survives only so long as it keeps itself at the top...

If our analysis of present-day society is correct, we have the enormous populations of the modern industrial countries, living always on the verge of starvation, their chance fo...

There are two words which we need in this discussion, and as they are generally used loosely, they must now be defined precisely. The two words are celibacy and chastity. We def...

Let us now assume that we desire to abolish the wastes of the competitive method, and to put our industry on a basis of co-operation. How should we effect the change, and how sh...

It has been indicated that the new society will be different in different countries and in different parts of the same country, in different industries and at different times. N...

We have now to consider the relationship of man to his fellows, with whom he lives in social groups. Upon this problem floods of light have been thrown by the new science of psy...

Farming the land is a very ancient industry, and while its tools have been improved, its social forms have been the same for a long time. The worker on the land is conservative,...

It is manifest that the rich cannot indulge in vices, without drawing the poor after them; and in addition to this, the poor have their own evil instincts, which fester in negle...

We have quoted the old maxim, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure," and we suggested that parents and guardians should have the right to ask the young to wait before marriage,...

I assume now that our young couple have definitely made up their minds, and that the wedding day is near. They are therefore, both the man and the woman, in position to receive...

"All eyes are open or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind ha...

The problem of whether the social revolution shall be violent or peaceable depends in great part upon our answer to the question of confiscation versus compensation. We are now...

I will make the assumption that you would like to have a trial of my cure for prostitution. You would like to do something right here and now, without waiting for the social rev...

If the cause of our sex disorders is not physiological, what is it? Everything in nature must have a cause, and this includes human nature, the actions and feelings of men, both...

You will hear sermons and read newspaper editorials about the "divorce evil," and you will find that to the preacher or editor this "evil" consists of the fact that more and mor...

Seventy years ago Charles Darwin published his book, "The Origin of Species," in which he defied the theological dogma of his time by the shocking idea that life had evolved by...

So far we have discussed marriage as if it consisted only of love. But it is manifest that this is not the case. Marriage is every-day companionship, and also it is partnership...

From a study of the world's political revolutions we observe that a variety of governmental forms develop, and that different circumstances in each country produce different ins...

One of the commonest arguments in defense of the present business system runs as follows: The amount of money which is paid to labor is greatly in excess of the amount which is...

(Attempts to show what we can prove by our reason, and what we know intuitively; what is implied in the process of thinking, and without which no thought could be.)

There is a theory of social development, sometimes called the materialistic interpretation of history, and sometimes the economic interpretation of history. It is one of the con...

It is possible to conceive an order of nature in which all individuals were born and developed exactly alike and with exactly equal powers. Such is apparently the case with lowe...

The program of the railway workers for the democratic management of their industry is embodied in the Plumb plan. You may learn about it by addressing the weekly paper of the ra...

We have next to examine the structure of the capitalist order, basing our argument on facts which are admitted by everyone, including the most ardent defenders of the present sy...

In a discussion of the world's economic situation, published in 1906, the writer portrayed the ruling class of Germany as sitting in front of a thermometer, watching the mercury...

So now we may say that we know what are the great and important things in life. Slowly and patiently, with infinite distress and waste and failure, but yet inevitably, the life...

Let us picture a small island inhabited by six men. One of these men fishes, another hunts, another gathers cocoanuts, another raises goats for clothing, and so on. The six men...

We have seen that in an exploiting society there is a surplus which is taken by the exploiter; and that under the modern system this surplus must be sold at a profit before prod...

Elie Metchnikoff, one of the greatest of scientists, wrote a book entitled "The Nature of Man," in which he studied the human organism from the point of view of biology, demonst...

marriage, chastity, monogamy, birth control, divorce. Explains modern economic problems, Socialism, revolution, industrial democracy, and the future society. Prices of volumes o...

Attempts to show what we can prove by our reason, and what we know intuitively; what is implied in the process of thinking, and without which no thought could be.