THE DENIAL OF EVIL
We closed our last chapter with a confession and an appeal--a confession
of the incompleteness of our answers to the questions suggested by the
fact of evil, and an appeal for patience in recognising that that
incompleteness is inevitable, having regard to our constitutional
limitations. "There is," as Newman said, "a certain grave acquiescence
in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve momentous and
urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its own." [1] That,
however, is an attitude to which all will not resign themselves. If a
knot cannot be unravelled, their one idea of what to do is to cut it; if
evil cannot be explained, it can at any rate be denied. Thus we find a
distinguished living essayist, with a large constituency of cultured
readers, writing as follows:--
The essence of God's omnipotence is that both law and matter are His and
originate from Him; so that if a single fibre of what we know to be evil
can be found in the world, either God is responsible for that, or He is
{120} dealing with something He did not originate and cannot overcome.
Nothing can extricate us from this dilemma, except that what we think
evil is not really evil at all, but hidden good.
If the views of Divine power and responsibility set forth in this book
are true--if, _i.e._, we are justified in having recourse to a theory of
Divine self-limitation--it will be clear that Mr. Benson's "dilemma" is,
to say the least, overstated; but were that dilemma as desperate as he
depicts it, it has strangely escaped him that his suggested mode of
extrication is more desperate still. For what he asks us to do is quite
simply to abdicate our judgment in respect of both physical and ethical
phenomena--not merely to withhold our decision upon this or that
particular occurrence, but to admit in general terms that evil is only
apparent and not real. But see to what such an admission commits us: if
we have no grounds for saying that evil is evil, we can have no grounds
either for saying that good is good; if our faculties are incompetent to
diagnose the one kind of phenomena accurately, they cannot be any more
competent to diagnose and deliver reliable verdicts upon the other kind.
It is quite a mistake to think that by getting rid of the reality of evil
we preserve or affirm the more emphatically the reality of good; if we
confidently pronounce our experience of evil an illusion, what value can
there attach to our finding that our {121} experience of its opposite is
a fact? Such is the Nemesis which waits on remedies of the "heroic"
order.
Nevertheless this particular remedy seems to be enjoying a considerable
popularity at the present time; indeed, in discussing some aspects of the
doctrine which affirms the "allness" of God, and the allied one of
Monism, we have already seen that where these are professed, evil must be
explicitly or implicitly denied. This denial is common to the various
confused movements--all of them the outcome of a misconceived
idealism--which under the names of "New Thought," "Higher Thought," "Joy
Philosophy," "Christian Science," etc., etc., find their disciples
chiefly amongst that not inconsiderable section of the public which has
been aptly described as dominated by a "longing to combine a picturesque
certainty devoid of moral discipline with unlimited transcendental
speculations." All these cults combine a vague optimism with an
extravagant subjectivity; all would have us believe that so far from
things being what they are, they are whatever we may think them to be;
all with one accord treat evil in its various manifestations as unreal,
and maintain, as it has been neatly phrased, that "the process of cure
lies in the realisation that there is nothing to be cured." The
attraction of such a doctrine for that large number of persons who
dislike strenuous effort--either intellectual or {122} moral--is easily
accounted for. Evil as a fact is not conducive to the comfort of those
who contemplate it--how pleasant to be told that it exists only in
disordered imaginations; the sense of sin has always interfered with the
enjoyment of life--what a relief to learn that it is merely a chimaera;
pain is grievous indeed--what benefactors are those who teach us how to
conjure it away by the simple process of declaring that there is no such
thing! A creed promising to accomplish such desirable objects could be
sure of votaries, if proclaimed with sufficient _aplomb_; here, we may
surmise, is the main explanation of the welcome given to those monistic
ethics to which we referred in an earlier chapter, and of the vogue of
so-called "Christian Science," which invites consideration as the most
typical and important of a whole group of movements.
We repeat that the nature of the Christian Science appeal largely
explains the rapid spread of this cult. Christian Science is quite
unlike other religions in this, that while they promise at most
salvation--an intangible boon--Mrs. Eddy promises her followers _health_,
relief from bodily pain and sickness, and thus addresses herself to a
universally and urgently felt want. A merely spiritual message may fail
to obtain listeners; but--to state the truth baldly--a person need not be
particularly spiritually-minded in order to be drawn towards Christian
Science. The natural man would much rather {123} be made well than made
good, and a creed which professes to be able to do the former will touch
him in his most sensitive part. Certainly, this was one of the
difficulties of Christ's public ministry, _viz._, that the people flocked
to Him to be cured rather than to be taught. But while He declined to
place the emphasis on His works of healing--while He left Capernaum by
Himself before sunrise in order to escape the importunities of the mob,
and refused Peter's request that He should return thither with the words,
"Let us go elsewhere into the next towns that I may preach there also;
for to _this_ end came I forth"--Christian Science addresses its sure
appeal to man's material nature. The contrast is significant.
And yet the true essence of Christian Science is not "faith-healing" in
the ordinary sense. It does not say, _e.g._, "Here is a case of genuine,
unmistakeable rheumatism or consumption, but faith is able to dispel it";
on the contrary, it says, "This alleged rheumatism or consumption is a
mere illusion, a phantasm of the imagination; and the way to be cured is
for the 'patient' to discover his mistake. There are no maladies--there
are only _malades imaginaires_." Mrs. Eddy states in plain words that
"Mortal ills are but errors of thought" [2]; it is from this point of
view that Christian Science as a system has to be approached and
understood.
{124}
With the fantastic exegesis of Scripture on which this creed professes to
be based, we are not directly concerned; else something might be said of
the method of interpretation which is to be found in the official
text-book of the movement--a method which sees in the serpent the symbol
of malicious animal magnetism, which identifies the Holy Ghost and the
New Jerusalem with Christian Science, and the little book brought down
from heaven by the mighty angel with Mrs. Eddy's own _magnum opus_,
_Science and Health_. As Mr. Podmore drily remarks, "In these holy games
each player is at liberty to make words mean what he wants them to mean";
at the same time, these grotesque and arbitrary constructions are not
precisely calculated to inspire the confidence of balanced minds.
Let us, however, turn at once to the fundamental axioms of Christian
Science:--
(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.
In other words, Christian Science begins--and, for the matter of that,
ends--with the categorical statement that the one and only Reality is
Mind, Goodness, God, all three of which terms it uses synonymously and
interchangeably. So much being granted, the rest follows "in a
concatenation according"; the {125} possible permutations are many--the
result is always one. _God is All_: hence, says Mrs. Eddy, "_All is
God_, and there is naught beside Him"; but _God is Good_, and as He is
_All_, it follows that _All is Good_; and if all is good, _there can be
no evil_. Again, Mrs. Eddy propounds the following three propositions:
_God is Mind; Good is Mind; All is Mind_; therefore, once more, all is
good, all is God, and _there can be no evil_. Or, to introduce another
variation--_God is All_, and _God is Mind_; therefore _Mind is all_;
therefore _there is no matter_. Grant the Christian Science premises,
and there is no escaping the Christian Science conclusions.
But do we grant these premises--do we grant Mrs. Eddy's fundamental
pantheistic assumption of "the allness of God" [3]? We have shown again
and again why we do not; and with the rejection of the basal tenet of
Christian Science the superstructure follows. But now let us show how
all Mrs. Eddy's juggling with words, all her assertions of the goodness
of all and the allness of good, do not help her to get rid of evil.
Granting for argument's sake that Mind is the only reality, then the test
of reality must be this--that something exists in or for a mind; in so
far, {126} then, as evil, pain, and so forth exist, as Christian Science
tells us, "only" in some mind--in so far as "disease is a thing of
thought" [4]--evil, pain, disease, etc., must _pro tanto_ be real, nay,
the most real of realities, for where except in mind could they exist?
And even if we can successfully annihilate them by denying their
existence, whence did they come in the first place? From "malicious
animal magnetism"? But if God is All in all, and All-good, what is that
malicious animal magnetism which is somehow not God and not good? Does
not this whole tangle serve yet once more to illustrate the futility of
that doctrine of Divine allness which we have seen successfully
masquerading as Divine immanence?
Let us test the worth of these speculations in yet another way.
Christian Science declares evil to be non-existent, illusory, an "error
of thought." But that which is true of a species must be true of all its
genera; if all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, it follows that
Socrates is mortal; if evil as a whole is nonexistent, that which applies
to the general phenomenon must equally apply to each and all of its
manifestations. But error is undoubtedly a form, and even a serious
form, of evil; from which it would follow that if evil is not real, error
is not possible--and in that case one opinion is as good as its opposite,
and black and white are only different {127} descriptions of the same
thing. But if that is so, if one thing is as true as another, we shall
conclude that, _e.g._, the rejection of Christian Science is no more
erroneous than its affirmation. Will Christian Scientists acquiesce in
that inference? And if they will not, by what means do they propose to
show that it is not a legitimate deduction from their own axiom, the
unreality of evil? If error is a real fact, evil must be so to that
extent; on the other hand, how can it be an error to believe that evil is
real, if error, being an evil, must itself be illusory?
But it is time we turned from our examination of the principles of
Christian Science to their application. So far as the wholesale
declaration of the illusoriness of physical evil--the ravages and
tortures of disease--is concerned, the implicit belief extended to the
pretensions of this creed to master all such ills is proof, if proof were
wanted, of the success which rewards those who act on the maxim, "_de
l'audace, toujours de l'audace_!" Given the right kind and amount of
faith, we are assured, Christian Science treatment will prove effective
in a case of double pneumonia, or compound fracture, or malignant tumour,
without the assistance of the physician--above all, without "drugs,"
which are pronounced _taboo_ by Mrs. Eddy; "and that," to quote Mr.
Podmore again, "is a postulate which can never be contradicted by
experience, for failure can always be {128} ascribed--as it is, in fact,
ascribed by the Christian Scientist to-day--to want of faith or 'Science'
on the part of the sufferer." Nothing could be more entirely simple or
unanswerable: if the patient improves or recovers, the credit goes to
Christian Science; if he gets worse or dies, the unfortunate result is
debited to his lack of faith. The only thing Christian Science fails to
answer is, as we have already seen, the preliminary question, _viz._,
what caused the disease--or at any rate the semblance, the malignant
hallucination of disease--in the first instance. If God is all and all
is God; if God is Mind and there is nothing but Mind; if all therefore is
mind and all is good--whence in a good Mind comes even the hallucination
of pain and evil? "The thoughts of the practitioner," says Mrs. Eddy,
"should be imbued with a clear conviction of the omnipotence and
omnipresence of God; . . . and hence, that whatever militates against
health . . . is an unjust usurper of the throne of the Controller of all
mankind." [5] But if God is omnipresent, His presence must be displayed
in the disease; if He is omnipotent, how can there be a usurper on His
throne? If He is All, how can there be aught beside Him? These are
points on which we wait in vain for enlightenment from the Boston
mysteriarch.
{129}
We shall be told, however, that whatever flaws there may be in the theory
of Christian Science, this cult could not possibly have obtained its
vogue if it were all promise and no performance; and as a matter of fact,
testimonies to the curative effect of the treatment abound, furnished by
those who say they have been restored to health by these methods, and as
convincing as such testimony can be. We use the latter phrase advisedly;
it is impossible to read these documents without being convinced of the
entire good faith of the writers in relating what they themselves believe
to be true; it is impossible not to be convinced by the perusal of their
accounts that cures of some sort took place: the one thing of which it is
possible to remain quite unconvinced is the fundamental contention of
Christian Science, _viz._, that there was no disease to be cured.
Speaking quite generally, if one is going to be impressed by testimonials
there is of course, no patent pill of respectable advertising power which
cannot produce such by the wastepaper-basketful; and perfectly sincere
and unsolicited testimonials, too. What these prove, however, is neither
that the patients have been cured of the particular diseases they may
name--and in the diagnosis of which they may very likely be mistaken--nor
above all that it is the taking of a particular preparation to which they
owe their cures; they prove the enormous power of suggestion and
auto-suggestion, in {130} virtue of which many ailments yield to the
patient's firm assurance that by following a certain course he will get
better. Everyone knows that a manner which inspires confidence, a happy
blend of cheerfulness and suave authority, is of at least equal value to
a physician as his skill and diplomas; and it is probably true,
approximately at any rate, that a man can no more be cured of a serious
illness unless he believes in his curability, than he can be hypnotised
against his will. But between the recognition of such a fact, and the
description of a cancer as an obstinate illusion, or a crushed limb as an
"error of thought," there is just the difference which separates sanity
from extravaganza.
In short, that which is of truth in Christian Science is not peculiar to
it; while what is peculiar to its teaching, the denial of the reality of
shattered legs, wasted lungs, diseased spines, etc., is not true. The
power of mind over body, the possibility of healing certain diseases by
suggestion, is not the discovery of Mrs. Eddy; the assumption on the
other hand, that _all_ diseases are susceptible to such treatment is
characteristic of the school of which she is the latest and best-known
representative--only it is false. "All physicians of broad practice and
keen observation realise that certain pains may be alleviated or cured,
and that certain morbid conditions may be made to disappear, provided a
change in the mental {131} state of the patient can be brought
about. . . . It does not require special learning to build up a
psychotherapeutic practice based upon the observation of such cases; and
the Christian Science healers, narrowly educated and of narrow
experience, have done just this thing, resting upon the theory that the
mental influence of the healer is the effective curative agent. It is
easy to see how a development of this theory would lead to the assumption
that all kinds of diseases may be curable by mental influence emanating
from a healer, this leading to the practice of the so-called
'absent-treatment,' with all its follies and dangers." [6] When it is
added that the Christian Science healer is a professional person, and
that the cost of "absent-treatment" may come to as much as ten dollars an
hour, we need say no more about the "dangers" alluded to.[7] That the
quasi-religious formulas of Christian Science may prove extremely
effective in bringing about such a change in the mental state of certain
patients as will cause pains {132} to be alleviated or cured, and morbid
conditions to disappear, one need have no hesitation in believing;
moreover, as the medical author just quoted acutely observes, it is quite
possible that some patients would not be cured unless they were "allowed
to believe that their cures are due to some mysterious or miraculous
agency." But even such an admission does not mean that Christian Science
does more than apply the principle of suggestion, increasing its efficacy
by utilising the religious faculty of the patient; nor, above all, does
it give countenance to the root-contention of the creed, _viz._, that
pain and disease are unreal. Once more, if mind be the only reality,
then pain, seeing that it can only be experienced by a mind, is real in
exact proportion as it is intense.
It might seem unnecessary to add anything more to what has been said in
refutation of the claims of Christian Science so far as physical healing
is concerned; but one or two very simple considerations will complete our
case without greatly detaining us.
In stating categorically and without qualification that "mortal ills are
but errors of thought," Mrs. Eddy seems to have overlooked two classes of
patients to whom it would be somewhat difficult to apply this sweeping
generalisation. We wonder, for instance, how this theory could be made
to cover the large category of infantile ailments. How, we are {133}
entitled to ask, would Christian Science deal with the teething-troubles
which attend babyhood? Is it seriously suggested that a feverish,
wailing child is merely the victim of an hallucination--and how would the
Christian Scientist undertake to convince him of his illusion? On the
face of it, such an enterprise does not look hopeful. But further, it so
happens that human beings are not the only sufferers from pain and
sickness; animals are subject to diseases, and often to the same diseases
as men. We disclaim all intention of treating the subject otherwise than
seriously--but if a man's rheumatism is an illusion, what causes the same
affection in a dog or a chimpanzee? And if an embrocation may be used
with good effects in the latter case, why may it not be used in the
former? We need not press these questions; they will serve as they stand
to show once more how this whole pretentious philosophy about the
unreality, the imaginary nature, of pain breaks down as soon as we
subject it to simple tests. So also with the Christian Science attitude
towards "drugs," the prescribing of which Mrs. Eddy places in the same
category as the denial of God.[8] An obvious comment suggests itself: If
drugs cannot cure, it follows that they cannot hurt; will some adherent
to this teaching show his consistency in the faith by swallowing a small,
but sufficient quantity {134} of oxalic acid? And so, finally, with Mrs.
Eddy's singularly futile question, "As power divine is in the healer, why
should mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food?" [9]
Without unkindliness, one feels tempted to reply that this kind of
language will begin to be convincing when Christian Scientists show their
readiness and ability to sustain life on substances chemically certified
to be without nutritive properties.
But it is not its denial of physical evil that makes this and allied
movements a real menace; dissent as we may from the Christian Science
theory of bodily illness, and deplore as we must the fatal results of
which we read every now and again when a patient has been persuaded to
substitute the Christian Science "healer" for the trained
physician--these results concern, to put it rather bluntly, no one but
the sufferer and his immediate friends. But when we remarked that the
natural man desired to be made well rather than to be made good, we were
not merely thinking of one side of Christian Science teaching; we were
bearing in mind that the author of _Science and Health_ declares the
illusoriness of pain only as part of the illusoriness of all evil, moral
as well as physical. _Christian Science explicitly denies the reality of
sin: and that denial follows with inexorable logic from its first
principle--that {135} God is All, and All is Good_. And here rather than
in the material domain lies the danger we have to face; this is the side
of Mrs. Eddy's doctrine which, the moment it is attractively presented
to, and grasped by, half-educated and unstable minds, will, we fear,
exercise a fatal fascination over large numbers. For one person who will
seriously persuade himself that there is no matter, or that his sore
throat is imaginary, there will be a number to welcome the good tidings
that what they had hitherto regarded as sin wears in reality no such
sinister complexion--that, as Mrs. Eddy openly states, _what seems "vice"
is to be explained as "illusions of the physical senses_." That is
precisely what every sinner would like to believe. "I have done that,
says my memory. I cannot have done that, says my pride, and remains
obdurate. In the end, my memory gives in." So wrote Nietzsche, keenly
and cynically observant of his kind. As a matter of fact, men would give
almost anything to be able to convince themselves that they "have not
done that"--not necessarily from pride, but in order to be rid of shame,
of remorse, of self-contempt; will not many of them only too eagerly
accept this fatal anodyne when it is offered to them in the pretended
name of religion?
We have but one comment to urge, one protest to make. It has taken long
ages to develop and heighten man's sensitiveness to {136} the distinction
between good and evil; we say with the most solemn emphasis that anything
calculated to dull that sensitiveness, to wipe out that distinction, to
drug the conscience, is nothing less than a crime of high treason against
humanity. Better call evil an unfathomable mystery, so long as we also
regard it as a dread reality, a foe we must conquer or be conquered by;
but to solve the problem by denying its existence, to get over the fact
of evil by declaring that all is good--that way not only madness but
moral disaster lies. Let us at least understand what this doctrine is,
which is being so energetically pressed upon us to-day; and if we see the
direction in which that ill-digested pseudo-revelation is likely to lead
those who consistently accept it, let us meet this insidious propaganda
with equal energy and better arguments. Our first and simplest duty in
dealing with the specious doctrine which asserts that evil is
"not-being"--a mere illusion which, like the idols spoken of by the
Apostle, is "nothing in the world"--is to point out promptly and
uncompromisingly that whatever such a reading of the facts may be, and
from whatever quarter it may be offered, it is not Christian, but at the
furthest remove from Christianity. Shall we be told that "the question
is not whether these opinions are dangerous, but whether they are true?"
We reply that we are well aware that truth is the highest expediency; but
we are not {137} acquainted with any other test of the truth of an
opinion save this--whether and how it works. If a speculative theory,
when carried into practice, should appear to make straight for pernicious
results, in what intelligible sense of the word can it be "true"?
It is the immense merit of Christianity that it has spoken out with no
uncertain voice upon this subject; it has never sought to minimise or
explain away the fact of moral evil; on the contrary, it has consistently
pointed to the true nature of sin, by connecting it vitally and causally
with the sacrificial death of the Son of God: _tanta molis erat_ (if we
may slightly vary the immortal line) _humanam solvere gentem_. A gospel
which lightly dismisses this terrible reality, and seeks to hide its
hideousness behind a rose-coloured mist of fine words,--such an
emasculated gospel is not a message of life, but has the answer of death
within itself. That in the past, in a doctrine such as that of man's
total depravity, the fact of sin has been over-emphasised, may be readily
granted; but in the present all the symptoms indicate that the peril we
have to meet is its _under_-emphasis. Against this whole tendency we
must resolutely re-assert the Christian standpoint and attitude.
Christianity is that religion which affirms in unfaltering accents the
reality of evil--but it sets over against it the greater Reality of
atoning Love; it proclaims unsparingly the sinfulness and deadliness
{138} of sin, but offers us the victory over sin and death through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
"_O Timotheus, guard your trust, and eschew the irreverent empty phrases
and contradictions of a mis-called 'Science,' professing which some have
missed their true aim in regard to the faith._"
NOTE.
In order to afford an illustration of Christian Science as a thing in
being, we reproduce without comment the following report of an inquest,
as published in the _Tribune_, on January 9th, 1908:--
Remarkable questions were put by the coroner to witnesses at a Richmond
(Surrey) inquest yesterday on Mary Elizabeth Dixon, 58, a Christian
Scientist, who died of bronchitis.
Mrs. E. D., of St. John's Road, said that at the request of Mrs. Dixon
she gave her Christian Science help--prayer which she had faith would be
answered.
The Coroner (Dr. Michael Taylor): Was it?--She was in a state of collapse
on Saturday night, but revived much. When Mrs. Dixon had a cold
previously it improved wonderfully under Christian Science.
Then Christian Science is effectual if not much is the matter, but is not
in the case of a serious illness?--I don't think she wanted to get better.
Is that the way you look at it?--No, I don't. I know God is all-power
and ever present.
But if God is all-powerful, as you say, and as we all know, why did you
have no response?--I suppose it was my lack of trust in that all-power.
{139}
It comes to this, that although He is all-powerful, unless the person
praying for another has perfect faith the patient will not
recover?--Nothing is impossible to God. The doctor was called in because
it was the law.
Then it was too late. It was as much the law to have called him in when
the woman was alive. What is the practice with regard to illness?--It is
prayer.
If you had a broken leg, would you send for a doctor?--Yes, to set it. I
have not sufficient understanding.
Continuing, witness said she did not believe in drugs, but she did in
food at present, because her understanding was not sufficient, as she was
only a student.
By a Juror: The reason Mrs. Dixon got worse was because of lack of
understanding on witness's part.
The Coroner: When she got worse, why did you not send for a doctor?--I
asked her if she wanted a doctor to tell me.
Yet she was getting worse owing to your lack of understanding?--I didn't
look at it in that light.
B. H., who attended Mrs. Dixon, said she was a trained nurse with nine
years' experience. Witness had, during the past two years, become a
Christian Scientist nurse. She was not a practitioner.
The Coroner: Has a practitioner any special qualifications?--No, a
practitioner is one who prays for another.
The Coroner: Would you give a patient a mustard poultice?--No.
But you would give her a hot-water bottle?--Yes.
Then where do you draw the line? You don't believe in material aid?--No,
I believe the other is better.
Do you believe in a judicious continuation of both?--No.
Did you give her beef tea?--Yes, as a nourishment.
But, nurse, you ought to know what every medical man knows, that beef tea
is a stimulant. Do you believe in stimulants?--Not at all.
{140}
Then why did you give her beef tea?--(After a pause) It was simpler to
get.
But it is contrary to your principles. Would you give _sal
volatile_?--No.
Witness explained that she called in no other help because she believed
prayer was the most effectual.
Why didn't you call in a doctor?--I think the patient should judge for
herself.
Even though her brain is clouded and she is dying?--Yes.
On another point the Coroner said: Did our Saviour use food and
stimulants?--He gave wine.
Why don't you give wine?--He did not give it in illness, but at a
marriage feast.
You want us to believe He gave wine to people who could do without and
withheld it from those who wanted it.
Asked a question as to calling in a doctor for surgery purposes, witness
said he would only be called in for setting bones and not for an
operation.
The Coroner: It amounts to this: you believe the Almighty is a bad
surgeon, but a good physician?--Our faith is not yet strong enough.
Dr. Cockell deposed that death was due to acute bronchitis.
Would she have recovered with medical attendance for a week before?--Yes.
The Coroner, in summing up, said there was no doubt Mrs. Dixon was
grossly neglected.
The jury returned a verdict of "Death from acute bronchitis, accelerated
by gross neglect by Mrs. D. and especially by Nurse H."
The Coroner: I am afraid that will mean manslaughter, which would be too
severe. Will you alter it, gentlemen? The jury then altered the verdict
to one of "severe censure on Mrs. D. and Miss H. for neglecting to obtain
medical aid."
[1] _The Grammar of Assent_, p. 201.
[2] _Rudimental Divine Science_, p. 10.
[3] _Op. cit._, p. 10. Mrs. Eddy is so incredibly ignorant of the
meaning of words in common use that she says, "Mind in matter is
pantheism." It has apparently never dawned on her that her own doctrine,
"God is All--All is God" is pantheism pure and simple!
[4] _Ibid_.
[5] _Op. cit._, p. 9.
[6] Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall, on "Psychotherapeutics," in the _Hibbert
Journal_, January, 1909.
[7] The Christian Science healer is supposed to have had his or her
powers trained by special tuition, for which, in the ordinary course, a
fee is charged. Mrs. Eddy states that she has "never taught a Primary
class without several and sometimes seventeen free students in it," but
adds significantly "The student who pays must, of necessity, do better
than he who does not pay" (_op. cit._, p. 14). The "necessity" is not
quite obvious, but the statement sets one wondering whether it would hold
true if for "student" the word "patient" were substituted.
[8] _Op. cit._, p. 3.
[9] _Ibid._, p. 13.
{141}