The Life of a man
Man belongs to the earth and to the planetary system of the sun. He is part of all the life of the earth. As the years have passed one after another, a million years after a million years, evolution has changed life’s forms. Each form of life is sustained by many others and one form has been the source of another. Man is nature’s most recent heir and his inheritance is his brain by which he knows what he is and understands what has made him what he is.
We are all, each one of us, a part of all the life which has gone before us and all that will come after us. Each life plays its own part in the history of man. Each one by his existence and by his activity plays a part in sustaining the life of mankind, and by his thoughts and his speech helps in maintaining the wisdom and the knowledge that men have accumulated ready to be passed on to the generations of the future
Some men have made great additions to the knowledge and skills of men. The contributions of some to the inheritance of mankind have been much greater than others, but we can never say that the effects of any life, however unseen they may be, are nothing. Day by day each life affects many others; the ripples from the existence of one pass outwards touching and shaping the lives of many known and unknown.
Each man is himself, unique. WE are all men, born in the same way, living in the same way, living, thinking, feeling, by the processes of energy within us, and yet these processes have the possibility of such variation that are no two men alike. We have something of our own to add to the life of man which no one else could give.
This separateness and uniqueness of man is the source of our sorrow and grief. Look through the whole earth and the one we have lost is not to be found; there is none like him. But he played his part in our lives;what he was still lives in our minds. Our lives which are a part of his life go on and the ripples of his life are still passing outward in known and unknown ways. Withthose present, and withthose who have gone and with those who are yet to be born, he has his place in the procession of humankind and the process of life.
Margaret Laws Smith
