|Perhaps the term which best describes the thinking which leads so many
to accept Mrs. Eddy's teaching as both scientific and Christian is what
the psychologists call "arrested mentation." The majority of people
reason admirably up to a certain point, and then they suddenly come to
a full stop. Having followed the right path to a considerable distance,
they then deliberately refuse to follow it further. To speak more
plainly, there are many people who reason correctly enough on some
subjects, but on other subjects they manifest a credulity beyond belief.
The Moslem, for instance, uses his reason against the claims of every
religion but his own. The Christian Scientist argues like a trained
logician against all alien cults, but when it is a question of his own
faith he bids his reason to hush. For example, he observes, accurately
enough, as we all do, that the mind frequently creates the conditions of
the body. A man may at times think himself sick, or he may think himself
into health. The will, too, is a factor to be reckoned with. The truth
of the saying, "Where there's a will there's away," has more than once
been demonstrated. In the same way, we all admit, since experience
compels it, that the greater thoughts or sensations often crowd out of
the mind the lesser ones. That is an axiom. If I am suffering from a
toothache, the sudden appearance of a burglar in my room, pointing a
revolver at me, will in all probability make me forget my toothache
instantly. The cavity or the affected nerve which caused my pain is as
real as ever, but for the time being I have a more intense sensation
elsewhere in my system which renders me quite oblivious to the
comparatively lesser pain. Within certain limits and in connection with
certain maladies this principle--namely, the creating of a more powerful
emotion in the mind than the one which is absorbing attention--could
be, and is, utilized with therapeutic results. For people who worry, who
imagine things, a complete diversion is usually all the medicine needed.
So far, so well.
But the Christian Scientists who keep their eyes open to the evidences
of the mind controlling the body, and know very well how to use these as
arguments, shut their eyes completely to the equally convincing
proofs of the power of the body over the mind. Hunger or insomnia, if
prolonged, will put the mind out of commission. Destroy the optic nerve,
and all the mentality in the world cannot make the eyes see. Stop
the full flow of blood into the brain, and every one of our mental
faculties--memory, perception, judgment, as well as the power of
speech--becomes crippled, if not totally destroyed. Will any sensible
person dispute these statements? The Christian Scientist, who sees how
many things the mind can do, deliberately ignores the things it cannot
do. Can mind, as Herbert Spencer asks, change a field sown in wheat
into a cotton field? Can it make a horse into a cow? Can it transform an
African into an Anglo-Saxon? Can it convert copper or brass into gold?
Can we, by thinking, make the sun go around the earth? At one time
people did think that the sun moved and that the earth stood still. Did
thinking make it so?
It would be easier to prove that the mind would be helpless without the
body than that the body would be helpless without the mind. Take away
from man his erect posture or his hands, and not even the mentality of
a Prometheus would prevent the decline and deterioration of the
human race. What a wonderful instrument is the hand! It has no doubt
contributed much towards the evolution of man. The thumb meeting each
finger separately, or all four of them combined, enables one to take
hold of things.
The ability to feel things with the hands, to turn them over, to
take them apart, to bring them nearer to the eyes for a more minute
examination, started the mind into action, just as the same hands, by
putting food into the mouth, started the machinery of life into going.
Deprive man of his hands, and he will slowly slip to the foot of the
ladder, no matter how much mind he may have. On the other hand, endow
an oyster with the human frame, and in time it will develop a mind and a
civilization. An oyster with the mind of a Shakespeare would still be an
oyster, while a Shakespeare with the body of an oyster would have no use
for his "thousand souls." Why do not the converts of Mrs. Eddy see all
sides of a question? Because they think so far and no farther.
Do Christian Scientists Use their Minds?
|Despite the frequent use of the word "mind," there are perhaps few
people who use their minds less than Mrs. Eddy's disciples. Mental
development is possible only where there is freedom to think, to
experiment, to differ, and to originate. Are Christian Scientists
permitted to think for themselves? Are they at liberty to differ or to
express original views? To repeat or imitate another very little mind
is required. All the Christian Science topics, lessons, and instructions
are issued from headquarters, and the official readers in the
denomination merely repeat these verbatim. In their Sunday meetings
no original or even individual word is allowed. Of what use, then, is
mentality to a consistent Christian Scientist, who believes that the
truth, the only truth, the final truth, has been discovered and brought
to him once for all?
In the Kentucky cave of darkness fishes and mice are found without eyes.
What use could they make of sight in the darkness? Mind may become as
superfluous to human beings who have nothing more to discover as eyes
are to the denizens of Mammoth Cave.
The following from a letter sent to Mrs. Eddy and printed in _Science
and Health_ (p. 615) shows what small use some people have for their
minds. The writer, whose initials alone are given, "L. C. L., Salt Lake
City, Utah," writes how he fell from his bicycle while riding down a
hill "at a rapid pace; and, falling on my left side with my arm under my
head, the bone was broken about halfway between the shoulder and elbow.
While the pain was intense, I lay in the dust declaring the truth, and
denying that there could be a break or accident in the realm of Divine
Love." So saying, he remounts his wheel and rides home and orders
_Science and Health_ to be brought to him immediately, "which I read
for about ten minutes, when all pain left." When he told his story his
hearers would not believe that his arm could have been broken. To prove
that it had he goes to an X-ray physician, who says: "Yes, it has been
broken, but whoever set it made a perfect job of it, and you will never
have any further trouble from that break." The writer concludes his
letter with: "This is the first of several cases of _mental surgery_
that have come under my notice."
What shall we think of the mentality which can be the parent of such
contradictions! Here is a man who admits that he fell, though "there are
no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." He also admits that he broke
his arm while "denying that there could be a break in the realm of
Divine Love." The broken bone is set by the reading of _Science and
Health_, although it could not have been broken, for he did not fall,
seeing that there are "no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." If he
did not fall, he did not break his bone. But if the bone was not broken,
it was not set; and if it was not set, there was nothing to prove the
healing power of Christian Science. Therefore, he did fall and did break
his bone "while denying that there could be a break or an accident in
the realm of Divine Love"; and a physician, a man of material science,
is called in to prove that the broken bone was admirably set by "mental
surgery."
Let me add that if _Science and Health_ could set a broken bone, it
could also have prevented the accident. If it could not, then Christian
Science is insufficient; if it could have prevented the fall and the
breaking of the bone, and did not, then it was responsible for the
misfortune. The further fact that the X-ray discovered that the bone had
been set proves that Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ had not been able
to obliterate all the marks of the fall and the break; which again shows
that accidents do happen and bones do break "in the realm of Divine
Love." People who make no better use of their minds than "L. C. L." of
Salt Lake City does might just as well have no more mind than the cave
fishes have eyes.