1. Introduction

All life is subject to laws. Fixed material relationships provide the balance necessary to our survival and sustenance. They also dictate the conditions, primordial requisites and limitations within whereby we are able to flourish abundantly and live healthfully on our planet.

These laws follow an organized structure—a universal order—a perfect pattern beginning with space and time, energy and its activity—co-existing in constant, spontaneous, harmonious vibration and automatic progression as a continuum. The basic primary laws of vibration and bonding give energy its shape and substance in the form which we call matter. All matter is bonded energy. This matter/energy harmony, governed by perfect universal order, is the basis for all laws and constants of physics and chemistry such as the laws of mass and centrifugal force, which act in harmony to create the gravitational balance which is a constant of our existence on Earth. These fundamentals (our basic sciences) harmonize go give us the basic principles of biology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, the secondary sciences which determine our identity, composition, characteristics, and behavior as living organisms in symbiotic relationships to our internal and external environment and form which the laws of vital relation governing all plant and animal life, of which we are an integral part, are formulated.

This is the basis for our study of human life. Without these functional relationships, there could be no life as we know it. With them, life is possible. If allowed to follow nature's perfect course of action, life immediately and automatically proceeds in the direction of perfect form. It originated and developed in strict obedience to the laws of nature. Life can be perfect if the laws of life are followed.

Life is a continuum. It is governed by immutable laws. These laws are unvarying. They must meet certain criteria to be termed laws of nature. These criteria are:

First, the principle, relationship or law must be fixed or constant—the same in all places and at all times, universally applicable under all conditions.

Second, it must be governed by universal order, harmonious with all other laws, reliable and predictable.

Third, it must be inherent in the nature of things as an integral factor, necessary to the completion of the sequence of natural process; that is, nature as we know it could not be sustained without it.

Fourth, it must be all-encompassing, excluding nothing. All aspects of nature must be governed by it.

And fifth, it must describe succinctly and accurately the normal sequence of developments and be the guiding principle in fundamental relationships.

All of these criteria are necessary to the formulation of a law of nature. All the laws of nature meet these criteria in every sense. They are as reliable as the motion of the universe. In the same way, we know where a planet in our solar system or our moon will be at any given moment based on laws of planetary motion in astronomy. With charts and records, we can be sure and feel safe and secure about the laws of anatomy and physiology governing human life and health. The laws never change; only environmental conditions change. The same law of gravity that allows a balloon to rise brings it back to Earth; the difference in conditions controls its altitude, but the law remains constant. Likewise, the same laws that cause a ship to float will, under changed conditions, allow it to sink. Again, the conditions change, but the laws remain constant.

In the same way, we can control our quality of health with the help of nature by changing our conditions— removing the causes of disease development and supplying the body intelligently with its needs—the elements of health.

It is impossible to break a law of nature. To say we have "broken" a law of nature is as if to say that the sun "rises" and "sets;" it is only a convenient idiomatic word form description of what has really taken place. If a child touches something hot and burns its finger, it has not violated a law of nature; rather, it has merely illustrated the results of its action. We can choose to ignore nature's laws and suffer the consequences, or observe and follow nature's laws and reap the benefits. When a pilot flies an airplane, he must observe strict rules of aeronautics and aviation which are dictated by natural laws of physics; and if he fails to abide by them, or to operate the plane within these limitations, he will crash.

So it is with our quality of health. If we overeat, or eat of an improper diet, ingest any poisonous substance or substances, or if in any way we fail to supply the body with its needs properly or subject it to inappropriate conditions, the degree of disharmony we subject it to determines the level of impairment of our health. The same sun that nourishes our body through the skin and plant life will enervate and damage us if we overexpose ourselves to it. Exercise is vital to oxidation and utilization of nutrients which are to be appropriated by the body; yet we can overexert ourselves and cause enervation which will impair our ability to assimilate and appropriate food. We must observe nature's laws and live within their limitations or suffer.

Understanding nature's laws and intelligently employing them in our everyday lives is the essence of Natural Hygiene/Life Science. The better we are acquainted with natural laws and how they affect us constantly, and the more harmoniously we observe and follow them, the higher level of health we enjoy, and the more effectively we resist adversity as it confronts us.

Natural Hygiene/Life Science is the study of the primordial requisites of life and the understanding and correct application of the laws of nature in order to most advantageously meet the needs of life and preserve it and its integrity in the most vital and abundant sense on all levels. What we do or don't do now and from now on determines, and will continue to determine, our quality of life and our level of health.

The future of our health is in our own hands to the extent that circumstances of the past and health of our past generations have not had some peculiar overriding influence of influences upon our birth or the state of our present well-being, such as an inherent constitutional weakness passed on through our forebearers. Nature is wonderfully provident and compensating in most cases and protects us up to a point which varies from family to family and birth to birth, depending on complex conditions, again within nature's limitations! The more consistently we live in harmony with the laws of life from generation to generation, as a body of like-minded people, the more we will improve the quality and upgrade the potentials of succeeding generations.

A consistent, concerted effort to live healthfully and harmoniously is urgently needed to reverse the gradually degenerating trend of our human race. Furthermore, we need to examine our role as an integral part of all plant and animal life and realize our necessity to preserve our symbiotic relationship with our natural environment. We must protect and preserve the ecology of our Earth upon which all life, including our lives and the lives of our children and succeeding generations, must depend if we are to survive as a human race and, ultimately if life as a whole is to survive.

How effectively and extensively we reach out and educate those around us to nature's immutable laws and limitations they impose and alert our fellow beings to the changes necessary for reversing the present downward degenerative pattern will directly affect whether we are successful in saving the quality and integrity of our lives and our environment and in preserving our future.

There are those who would say it is already to late—that the time for turning around our ecological destiny has come and gone and that we will inevitably perish because of the constant onslaught of infractions and injustices we have assaulted upon our planet. This has been reflected in many of the thoughts and attitudes exhibited by some of our nation's leaders and appointees overseeing the affairs of our country's natural preserves and resources.

In my opinion, nature is supreme and omnipotent, and it is impossible to destroy nature. Nature's supremacy is demonstrated constantly in our global weather and in the many natural "disasters" which take place in the form of earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes and tornadoes. It is further demonstrated in the power of the oceans and rivers, lakes, and streams, in our seasons, even in such instances as the single blade of grass that cracks a cement sidewalk, in the trickle of water that eventually may form a canyon, in the tree that continues to live and bear fruit even after it has been knocked over.

Man will never be able to overpower nature and her laws, no matter how many buildings he constructs which will eventually crumble, no matter how many roads he paves which eventually will be overgrown when left unattended or unmaintained, no matter how many bombs he builds and detonates, nuclear or otherwise, as nature systematically continues on regardless of scars. Of course, it is possible for man to exterminate himself and much of his surroundings for a time, perhaps a very long time after a nuclear accident or holocaust, and even though he may be able to destroy himself or make his environment unfit to support him, nature will eventually recover and repair that which he has destroyed, probably including man himself. Nature is omnipotent and all-encompassing, and nature's laws prove and demonstrate it continually and endlessly.

Here are the laws of vital relationships, the fundamental and secondary principles of Natural Hygiene/Life Science, as formulated in accordance with universal law and comparative studies of biology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology. These laws determine life as we know it; those laws of nature govern us and provide for us the capacity for natural defense. A disease-free existence with perfect health is possible if we let nature be our guide and live in harmony with her mandates.

All the laws of vital relation are built on two fundamental principles; the Law of Identity, as first set down by Aristotle in the third century B.C., and the Law of Self-Preservation or Law of Homeostasis also known as Life's Great Law. All other principles among the laws of vital relation are built upon these fundamental principles and are known as secondary principles, mostly being built upon Life's Great Law, which in turn, may be said to be built upon the Law of Identity as a fundamental extension of that primary law.