An Inquiry Into The Philosophy Principles And Practices Of Life Science

3. An Inquiry Into The Philosophy, Principles, And Practices Of Life Science

3.1 The Concept of Innate Individual Worth

Life Science holds that we are born naturally innocent and naturally good. The first two paragraphs of the concise statement we heretofore printed in exposition of Life Science’s philosophy, principles, and practices states this.

Scientific studies of babies and youngsters have pointed to one inescapable conclusion. As gregarious creatures, humans are naturally empathetic, altruistic and moral, i.e., humans are naturally righteous toward one another in keeping with their gregarious instinct.

Humans are woefully perverted by unnatural conditions within the context of civilization. They are made vicious by inhumane influences such as deceptive practices, exploitation, insecurity, and other baneful conditions in a society gone mad.

Individuals usually strive to present the appearance of upright character to others. This bespeaks our innate urge and conviction that we should be righteous. Life Science holds that if a society of assurance exists these innate virtues will assert themselves naturally.

3.2 The Concept of Happiness and Ideal Health as Normal

Life Science holds that life was developed to be a long joyous event from birth until a natural death. Happiness and health flow from ideal life conditions. Ideal life conditions ate normal in the environments of our development. However, such is the human intelligence that it has made almost all environments over the face of the globe inhabitable. Many arts, artifices, and artificial environments have been created to satisfactorily supplant the wonders, beauties, and beneficience of a natural environment in many habitats though, in truth, such artifices are never completely wholesome substitutes.

Life Science holds that humans developed to their high state because they adapted so well to the environment and its possibilities. This means that health is normal and natural when the conditions to which we are adapted are met. Superb excellence in humans flows from ideal life conditions and the superlative health begotten of them.

3.4 The Self-Evident Concept of Self-Government In All Organisms

Simple observation of the development of complex organisms from the union of sperm and ovum is indicative that the powers of life reside within. Without anything from the outside other than needed raw materials, the organism has the inner direction to fashion itself from a fertilized ovum into a mature adult.

This implies an inherent character that embraces the following capabilities:

• Organisms are self-programmed.
• Organisms are self-directing or self-governing.
• Organisms are self-sufficient when their material requisites are available.
• Organisms are self-constructing in accord with their genetic blueprint.
• Organisms are self-defensive and preservative, defending themselves against all internal and external threats.
• Organisms are self-repairing or self-healing and possess solely and exclusively the faculties and powers to accomplish restoration in event of damage or derangement.

These faculties and powers are self-evident upon the simplest observation of yourself or other organisms. This concept and its axioms should ever be borne in mind when dealing with clients. The confidence needed in dealing with your own problems should you have any, or with the problems of your clients, can be derived and reinforced by referring to these self-evident truths.

3.5 Life Science as a New Concept of Healthful Living

Life Science may be said to be a reassertion of the conditions best suited to human life. In pristine nature, humans lived what we now call Life Science because of primal urges—on the instinctual level. They lived as gatherers of fruits from vine, stalk, and tree.

With the development of intellect, humans became ever more versatile in dealing with the forces of nature. But this eventually led to human alienation from both nature and our biological heritage. Though most humans observed much of their pristine endowment well into the civilization of the Christian era, the dark ages of medieval times brought on the renunciation of nature and earthly considerations. Humans became poorer in the observation of the elementary needs of life. Human needs on earth were contravened in the name of religion and salvation.

Fortunately, the dark ages did not wipe out humankind. Near the end of the dark ages the unnatural and inhumane conditions under which European civilization lived decimated the population with plagues. Great plagues were not due to any kind of contagion. The only thing contagious in the times of the bubonic and black plagues was widespread modes of death-dealing living practices.

Hygiene or Life Science as a philosophy and outlook survived the dark ages when the twin human scourges of medical and religious superstition saddled most of what we refer to smugly as the civilized world. In many parts of the world our biological mandate was fairly well maintained, notably in tropical cultures of the Far East and in isolated pockets here and there. It was preserved among many traditions and cultures in part.

Well before the Christian era Pythagoras elaborated a rather extensive philosophy of living on all planes of life. Among them was perhaps the best formulated statement of Hygienic living until this time. While the Greeks, of whom Pythagoras was one, were heavy on fruitarianism, they were also heavy into the incipient practices that begot the modern goliath of medicine.

The philosophy of Pythagoras gave rise to Appolonius and the Essenes, an ascetic culture that was vegetarian/fruitarian in practice. Much of Essenian philosophy and practices were preserved in the New Testament and is quoted in the sayings of Christ. The thin thread of Hygienic philosophy survived and received a modern impetus from the greatest universal genius of all times, Leonardo da Vinci, who was a vegetarian/fruitarian.

Though medical beliefs remained relatively unscathed while the areas of religious domination were receding during the Renaissance, some elements of the Hygienic philosophy survived.

I reiterate that our natural heritage was largely unaffected by the medical outlook in many areas of the world, notably in the Far East. But healthful living as a philosophy of life in the Western Culture did not exist as such.

It was not until the time of Dr. Isaac Jennings in 1822 that Hygiene as a formalized philosophy of life had its beginnings. Not until the consummate genius of Drs. Graham, Trail, Dewey, Tilden, and Shelton did the philosophy and science of health become fully ascertained.

Life Science is not new from many perspectives, although it is relatively new to what we call civilization. But it is totally new for most who learn it the first time. Now it is alien to our culture because of its relative rarity. At this time Life Science, even though in accord with our pristine being, is in eclipse because of medical thinking and a commerce that trades upon pathogenic fare.

It is our hope to teach enough dedicated individuals this science of health to assure that humanity thrives in health and enlightenment. In pursuing this course you are asked to be the torchbearers of a way of life whose time has come.

3.6 Life Science as a Broad-Based Science of Life

By no means is Life Science confined to dietary principles as you might gather from association with today’s Hygienists. Few Hygienists involve themselves with the expansive aspects of Life Science as a philosophy embracing every facet of human well-being.

Dietary concerns are but one area of Life Science’s dominion. It also includes mental and emotional well-being, as well as social and economic well-being. It includes environmental factors or ecology and is coextensive with all factors that touch upon human welfare. While this course is nominally on the specific area of nutrition, nutrition is but a small part of the all-encompassing philosophy of Life Science.

3.7 The Concept of Self-Healing or Self-Repair

Self-healing is the only healing. Throughout nature we see animals with cuts, bruises, broken bones, and other injuries undergo healing. Obviously this healing is effected by internal faculties and powers, for in nature, animals seek out a quiet secluded spot and rest. They undergo almost no activity. They partake of no food.

Instinctively an injured animal will abstain from all indulgences that detract from the full application of the body’s energies and faculties to the reparative/restorative process. Likewise, humans when placed under the same conditions in keeping with our nature and disposition undergo healing in a fraction of the time that occurs when regular activities are pursued.

Healing is always and ever a biological process. Our task is but to establish the conditions so that the body may conduct the process more quickly and efficiently. The inherent programming, intelligence, and power that developed a fertilized ovum into a wonderfully and beautifully built creature is all the healing power that is needed. Conditions favorable to the exercise of these powers can be established. As a health practitioner/nutritionist it will be your role to know and apply these conditions.

Much suffering and grief result from the idea that the body can be helped by the application of substances, conditions, and treatments abnormal to the body. It will be your role to rescue the victims from harmful practices as well as set them on a right course for health recovery and maintenance.

3.8 The Concept of Individual Sovereignty

Life Science holds that everyone is an independent entity unto himself or herself within the context of society. Everyone should be entirely free—fettered in no way—within the context of enlightened self-interest—within the context of our symbiotic mandate on earth.

Every man, woman, and child must be regarded as capable of carrying on life’s affairs for himself or herself. It is not our role to judge or impose ourselves on others but to help if our aid is sought. We should not impose ourselves on anyone no matter how wise or unwise, or how good or bad such imposition is or would be. We must accord to everyone the prerogative of leading their lives as is their bent and capability so long as their pursuits do not impinge upon the birthright of others. The golden rule should be our rule of conduct.

While it may seem unwise to grant the same privileges and prerogatives to both the genius and the relatively unlettered, nevertheless a society is not free in which either are denied their right to pursue opportunities on an equal footing. The capable are bound to succeed and should offer aid to their biologically crippled or less favored brethren.

For all its drawbacks and advantages we must always respect everyone as supremely sovereign. Whatever they do or decide, however good or bad their acts or decisions, in their own interests, we must pursue a role of non-interference. We may, by example, seek to inspire and motivate. But to impose ourselves and our precepts on others is reprehensible.