Nature intended that man should be a comfortable animal and enjoy to the full the fruits of his labor. Man has ordered otherwise, and as a consequence in the receding days of the nineteenth century, when art and intellect have reached their highest development, we find man, born to be the favored creature of nature, laboring under self-imposed burdens of society, oftentimes heavier than he can bear. As a natural consequence of his pernicious environment he is frequently found seeking surcease from the pains of existence in self-immolation, temporary intoxication or suicide, the method adopted depending much upon his belief in a future state and his relation thereto. What are some of the steps that have operated to bring about these deplorable conditions? They can not be laid to natural causes because there has never been a time in the history of civilization when the actual needs of man were