VIII

Among such systems there is one which by its momentary prominence

overshadows all others; and for this reason, as well as for its

more explicit or rather more extended statement of principles, must

be accorded special attention: I need hardly say that I refer to

that egregious misnomer, Christian Science. This system is said

to have been discovered by, or revealed to, Mrs. Mary Baker Glover

Eddy in 1866. Several of its most distinctive positions (without

their religious setting) are to be found in the writings, and were

used in the practice of Mr. or Dr. P. P. Quimby (1802-1866), whom

Mrs. Eddy professionally consulted shortly before she began her own

propagandum. On its theoretical side, the system presents a series

of quasi-metaphysical principles and also a professed interpretation

of the Scriptures; on its practical side, it offers a means of

curing or avoiding disease, and includes under disease also what

is more generally described as sin and misfortune. With Christian

Science as a religious movement I shall not directly deal; I wish,

however, to point out that this assumption of a religious aspect

finds a parallel in Spiritualism and Theosophy, and doubtless forms

one of the most potent reasons for the success of these occult

movements. It would be a most dangerous principle to admit that the

treatment of disease and the right to ignore hygiene can become the

perquisite of any religious faith. It would be equally unwarranted

to permit the principles which are responsible for such beliefs to

take shelter behind the ramparts of religious tolerance, for the

essential principles of Christian Science do not constitute a form of

Christianity any more than they constitute a science; but, in so far

as they do not altogether elude description, pertain to the domain

over which medicine, physiology, and psychology hold sway. As David

Harum, in speaking of his church-going habits, characteristically

explains, "the one I stay away from when I don't go 's the

Presbyteriun," so the doctrines which Christian Science "stays

away from," are those over which recognized departments of academic

learning have the authority to decide.

Mrs. Eddy's _magnum opus_, serving at once as the text-book of the

"science" and as a revised version of the Scriptures, "Science and

Health, with Key to the Scriptures," has been circulated to the

extent of one hundred and seventy thousand copies. I shall not

give an account of this book, nor subject its more tangible tenets

to a logical review; I must be content to recommend its pages as

suggestive reading for the student of the modern occult, and to

set forth in the credentials of quotation marks some of the dicta

concerning disease. Yet it may be due to the author, or mouthpiece,

of this system, to begin by citing what are declared to be its

fundamental tenets, even if their connection with what is built upon

them is far from evident.

"The fundamental propositions of Christian Science are

summarized in the four following, to me, _self-evident_

propositions. Even if read backward, these propositions

will be found to agree in statement and proof:--

"1. God is All in all.

"2. God is good. Good is Mind.

"3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.

"4. Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil,

sin, disease--Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good,

omnipotent God, Life."

"What is termed disease does not exist." "Matter has no

being." "All is mind." "Matter is but the subjective

state of what is here termed _mortal mind_." "All

disease is the result of education, and can carry

its ill effects no farther than mortal mind maps out

the way." "The fear of dissevered bodily members,

or a belief in such a possibility, is reflected on

the body, in the shape of headache, fractured bones,

dislocated joints, and so on, as directly as shame

is seen rising to the cheek. This human error about

physical wounds and colics is part and parcel of

the delusion that matter can feel and see, having

sensation and substance." "Insanity implies belief in

a diseased brain, while physical ailments (so-called)

arise from belief that some other portions of the

body are deranged.... A bunion would produce insanity

as perceptible as that produced by congestion of the

brain, were it not that mortal mind calls the bunion

an unconscious portion of the body. Reverse this

belief and the results would be different." "We weep

because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and

we have small-pox because others have it; but mortal

mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection."

"A Christian Scientist never gives medicine, never

recommends hygiene, never manipulates." "Anatomy,

Physiology, Treatises on Health, sustained by what is

termed material law, are the husbandmen of sickness

and disease." "You can even educate a healthy horse

so far in physiology that he will take cold without

his blanket." "If exposure to a draught of air while

in a state of perspiration is followed by chills, dry

cough, influenza, congestive symptoms in the lungs, or

hints of inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy is

safe and sure. If you are a Christian Scientist, such

symptoms will not follow from the exposure; but if

you believe in laws of matter and their fatal effects

when transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your own

case or to destroy the bad effects of belief. When the

fear subsides and the conviction abides that you have

broken no law, neither rheumatism, consumption, nor

any other disease will ever result from exposure to

the weather." "Destroy fear and you end the fever."

"To prevent disease or cure it mentally let spirit

destroy the dream of sense. If you wish to heal by

argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name,

and array your mental plea against the physical. Argue

with the patient (mentally, not audibly) that he has

no disease, and conform the argument to the evidence.

Mentally insist that health is the everlasting fact,

and sickness the temporal falsity. Then realize the

presence of health, and the corporeal senses will

respond, so be it." "My publications alone heal more

sickness than an unconscientious student can begin to

reach." "The quotients, when numbers have been divided

by a fixed rule, are not more unquestionable than the

scientific tests I have made of the effects of truth

upon the sick." "I am never mistaken in my scientific

diagnosis of disease." "Outside of Christian Science

all is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth."

"Outside Christian Science all is error."

Surely this is a remarkable product of mortal mind! It would perhaps

be an interesting _tour de force_, though hardly so entertaining as

"Alice in Wonderland," to construct a universe on the assertions

and hypotheses which Christian Science presents; but it would have

less resemblance to the world we know than has Alice's wonderland.

For any person for whom logic and evidence are something more real

than ghosts or myths, the feat must always be relegated to the airy

realm of the imagination, and must not be brought in contact with

earthly realities. And yet the extravagance of Mrs. Eddy's book, its

superb disdain of vulgar fact, its transcendental self-confidence,

its solemn assumption that reiteration and variation of assertion

somehow spontaneously generate proof or self-evidence, its shrewd

assimilation of a theological flavor, its occasional successes in

producing a presentable travesty of scientific truth,--all these

distinctions may be found in many a dust-covered volume, that

represents the intensity of conviction of some equally enthusiastic

and equally inspired occultist, but one less successful in securing a

chorus to echo his refrain.

The temptation is strong not to dismiss "Eddyism" without

illustrating the peculiar structures under which, in an effort to be

consistent, it is forced to take shelter. Since disease is always

of purely mental origin, it follows that disease and its symptoms

cannot ensue without the conscious coöperation of the patient;

since "Christian Science divests material drugs of their imaginary

power," it follows that the labels on the bottles that stand on the

druggist's shelves are correspondingly meaningless. And it becomes

an interesting problem to inquire how the consensus of mortal mind

came about that associates one set of symptoms with prussic acid,

and another with alcohol, and another with quinine. Inhaling oxygen

or common air would prepare one for the surgeon's knife, and prussic

acid or alcohol have no more effect than water, if only a congress of

nations were to pronounce the former to be anæsthetic and promulgate

a decree that the latter be harmless. Christian Science does not

flinch from this position. "If a dose of poison is swallowed through

mistake and the patient dies, even though physician and patient are

expecting favorable results, does belief, you ask, cause this death?

Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally

taken. In such cases a few persons believe the potion swallowed by

the patient to be harmless; but the vast majority of mankind, though

they know nothing of this particular case and this special person,

believe the arsenic, the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to

be poisonous, for it has been set down as a poison by mortal mind.

The consequence is that the result is controlled by the majority of

opinions outside, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in

the sick chamber." But why should the opinions of οἱ πολλοί [Greek:

hoi polloi] be of influence in such a case, and the enlightened

minorities be sufficient to effect the marvelous cures in all the

other cases? Christian Scientists do not take cold in draughts in

spite of the contrary opinions or illusions of misguided majorities.

The logical Christian Scientist concludes that he need not eat, "for

the truth is food does not affect the life of man;" and yet at once

renounces his faith by adding, "but it would be foolish to venture

beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating, until

we gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension of the living

God." And the mental physician, to be consistent, must be a mental

surgeon also; and not plead that, "Until the advancing age admits the

efficacy and supremacy of mind, it is better to leave the adjustment

of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of surgeons."

But it is unprofitable to consider the failings and absurdities of

any occult system in its encounters with actual science and actual

fact. It is simply as a real and prominent menace to rationality that

these doctrines naturally attract consideration. Regarding them as

illustrations of present-day occult beliefs, we are naturally tempted

to inquire what measure of (perverted) truth they may contain; but

the more worthy question is, How do such perversions come to find

so large a company of "supporting listeners"? For to any one who

can read and be convinced by the sequence of words of this system,

ordinary logic has no power, and to him the world of reality brings

no message. No form of the modern occult antagonizes the foundations

of science so brusquely as this one. The possibility of science rests

on the thorough and absolute distinction between the subjective

and the objective. In what measure a man loses the power to draw

this distinction clearly, and as other men do, in that measure he

becomes irrational or insane. The objective exists; and no amount of

thinking it away or thinking it differently will change it. That is

what is understood by ultimate scientific truth; something that will

endure unmodified by passing ways of viewing it, open to every one's

verification who comes equipped with the proper means to verify,--a

permanent objective, to be ascertained by careful logical inquiry,

not to be determined by subjective opinion. Logic is the language of

science; Christian Science and what sane men call science can never

communicate because they do not speak the same language.