"THE PRECIOUS VOLUME."
In the world of books, Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ is the specially
"precious volume"; for she herself so designates and describes it at the
head of a chapter in her _Retrospection and Introspection_.[30] To her,
indeed, it is a very precious volume--more precious than even a goodly
pile of "the precious metals." Her devotees exchange these for it with
sublime certainty that they get more than the worth of their money; and
being in great need of science, to say nothing of health, their
profuseness may be forgiven.
But it should be said at once that "Christian Scientists" are neither a
bad nor a specially crude sort of the world's queer inhabitants. They are
fanatically honest; and, as a whole, they have just that "little
knowledge" which has long been proverbial as "a dangerous thing." Then
they are quite incapable of looking through the veil worn by their
beatific "Mother."
In the eyes of the unregenerate, these children of hers frequently turn to
_Science and Health_, or to a picture of its author celestially touched
up, when it would be well to inspect their plumbing and wash their
windows. But this is no broad case against them; for almost any sort of
camp-meeting, without regard to sect, is apt to bring upon the wicked some
small inconveniences.
As can readily be seen, Mrs. Eddy's lambs are often amusing, and thus
brighten life for less spiritual beings.
There is my babe-eyed friend, Mr. Tott. He never committed a cent's worth
of sin in his life. He is a veritable piece of the salt of the earth, a
little over-salted. But his youth has departed, and his sight is failing.
He used to wear glasses; but he discarded them for "Christian Science" and
a dim, economic light. He sees a little yet, though chiefly with "the eye
of the mind." With this eye, however, he beholds marvels of "healing"
going on all around him, which he proclaims and verifies at the weekly
meetings of his church. He buys all Mrs. Eddy's books and publications,
as fast as they come out. By patient effort he deciphers something of
their contents. Then, as he contemplates an assertive text from _Science
and Health_, or some tale of Jonah interpreted by Mother Eddy's _Key to
the Scriptures_, a celestial calm descends on his soul, and folds it in a
fabric softer than silk. He knows that he is better in health than ever
before, that he sees better, and that the entire universe is becoming
unspeakably illuminated. Disease never touches his physical frame; he has
merely "a _belief_ of a cold," or "a _belief_ of a corn." In the
etherialized Mr. Tott only one thing ever suggests a remnant of "wicked
matter." Cast a doubt on the sainthood of Mrs. Eddy, then you behold an
angel in anger. He may not indulge in personal violence, but he swiftly
threatens that, if once you breathe your unholy doubt aloud, "Judge
Hanna," or some other Sampson of "Science," will reduce you to a
grease-spot.[31]
But, among all Mrs. Eddy's followers, her "precious volume," _Science and
Health_, is paramountly precious to those who have paid their three
hundred dollars for imbibing the inmost knowledge of her "unfathomable"
religion, and have gone forth among the gentiles to teach and to heal. To
a missionary "in science," the "precious volume" cannot be too preciously
bound. Let the daintiest white of the white-winged dove encase its
"inspired words," printed on translated tissue of ethereal linen. Let the
sheen of the gold standard furnish splendor for the edges of the leaves,
and letters for the cover. Let the book be held before the eyes of a new
student or patient, with abysmal solemnity and mystic silence. Hypnotism,
if you _name_ it such, is bitterly disallowed; but "the precious volume"
is so hallowed a thing that no danger can come from using it in the same
way as the disk of a mesmerist. Impressiveness is the point--that self may
depart, and "science" become boundless. Almost every religious sect in all
history has had its fetich. "Christian Science" is not behind the
procession. Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ is the fetich thereof. In a
plain garment, for the poorer saints, it may be had for three dollars and
eighteen cents. In the purest, holiest, most golden robe it costs six
dollars.[32]
Let us look into _Science and Health_ and see what it is; though the
author warns us that something more than "mortal mind" is required to
understand it. This she asserts and repeats with the voice, as it were, of
a fog-horn grown eternal, until a multitude of people have come to think
that the sound really contains significance. In her _Retrospection and
Introspection_ Our Lady of "The Precious Volume" says:[33]
"_Science and Health_ is the textbook of Christian Science.... When the
demand for this book increased, and people were healed by simply reading
it, the copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at law, and my copyright
was protected."
The case of "protected copyright" to which Mrs. Eddy refers, took place in
1883. A Mr. Arens had practised some sort of "mental healing," without the
consent of the papal mother of "Christian Science." In connection with
such healing he had issued some pamphlets, in which, according to the
court records, he certainly came very near to reproducing certain
sentences from _Science and Health_, which had a commercial value in his
line, though they would not have sold for a cent out of "Science." The
man's defense was that Mrs. Eddy's own works were not original with her,
but had been copied from writings by Dr. Quimby.
Now Dr. Quimby, as we have seen, had sown the seed of the whole modern
field of "mental healing," and Mrs. Eddy, as Mary M. Patterson, had told
the whole truth about it. But Quimby's simple doctrine was that matter is
a phase of mind; and hence that the mind of man, as an inlet of God's
truth and power, can change the body and cure disease. Appropriating this
thought, Mrs. Eddy had stretched it out and blown it up into the ponderous
misfit labeled "Christian Science."
In 1883 none of Dr. Quimby's writings had been published, and there was no
convenient evidence to prove that Mrs. Eddy had ascribed his mind-healing
to "the Christ that was in him," and to his establishment of "Truth" in
wrong-thinking sick patients. As no such facts were presented, and as Mr.
Arens had clearly plagiarized Mrs. Eddy, whatever _she_ had done, the
court properly decided that her "copyright" be "protected." In other
words, the merits of the case were not involved, though the decision has
given Mother Eddy a chance to say, with her usual candor and logic, that
the failure of Arens "to produce his proof is _conclusive evidence_ that
_no such proof existed_."
_Science and Health_ is a book of nearly seven hundred pages, containing
somewhat less than two hundred thousand words; but this brief of
Un-Christian Non-Science includes Mrs. Eddy's _Key to the Scriptures_.
The eighty-second edition of "the precious volume" is the particular issue
here elucidated. We shall make a few quotations from _Science and Health_,
but only just enough to verify our criticism of it as a pretentious,
untrue, and unhealthy book, which, in the interest of the public, needs to
be exploded. For these quotations we shall give Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy
full credit. It would be a crime, indeed, to accuse any one else of
originating such capsules of metaphysical ipecac.
As laid down in _Science and Health_, the fundamental propositions of the
mumbo-jumbo termed "Christian Science" are four in number.
_First_: God is All.
_Second_: God is Good. Good is Mind.
_Third_: God, Spirit, being All, nothing is matter.
_Fourth_: Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease.
Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life.
Mrs. Eddy says that, _to her_, these are "_self-evident_ propositions."
They are proved, too, by "the rule of inversion." They are just as
harmonious backward as forward. There is a little hitch in Number Four,
which declares one way that God denies death, evil, sin, and disease, and
the other way that these deny God. But this one exception to "the rule of
inversion" only confirms it; for, according to Scripture, God is true, and
"every [mortal] man a liar."
For the corner-stone, then, of Eddyism, we have self-evident
propositions--self-evident to the mind of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy--and
with these an appeal to Scripture. Truly enough this must be "Divine
Science"; for no rational creature of modern times can suspect it of being
human science, whether true or false. But, says the great teacher of it,
"no human pen or tongue taught me the science," and "neither tongue nor
pen can overthrow it." Well, never mind the overthrow. But, when Mrs. Eddy
tells us that "no human pen or tongue" taught her "the science of
mind-healing," we are obliged to infer that Dr. Quimby was more than
human. How greatly would the plain but gifted Quimby have been shocked,
had he foreknown that Mrs. Eddy would thus apotheosize him.
Through _Science and Health_ we learn that "Christian Science" reveals,
"incontrovertibly," that "Mind is All-in-all"--the only "realities" being
"the divine Mind and idea." We learn, further, that this divine Mind is
God, that God's idea is Man, and that by authority of Webster an "idea" is
"an image in mind."
It would be truly pitiable for any theologian, or indeed for any believer
in a spirit-principle of the cosmos, to attempt the "overthrow" of these
venerable "revelations" now protected by Mrs. Eddy's copyright, but which
were hoary with age even in the days of the Greek Academy. Barring
Webster's definition of an idea, these "revelations" to Mrs. Eddy appear
revealed in the Bible, though not copyrighted. As logical metaphysics, in
recent times, Hegel reduced them to their utmost sublimation; and Hegel is
excellent authority in many of our colleges, as well as with the good Dr.
Harris, our United States Commissioner of Education at Washington.
Let us say once more that there is no trouble in effecting a spiritual
derivation of the universe, except to our friends, "the materialists," who
have themselves refined "matter" to things not much like it. The only
trouble with an all-containing, all-pervading Spiritual Source of
Existence, is in the funny havoc sometimes made of it by half-baked
people, like "Christian Scientists."
To Dr. Quimby, "Mind," or "Spirit" was the principle of all things. To
him, Matter was a condition of Spirit--"an idea," he said, "reduced to a
solid"--a "solid" meaning a definite and real appearance to human sense.
But this conception, which the old and regular school of metaphysicians
have held for thousands of years, would not do for the genuine original
"Mother of Christian Science" when she came to prescribe a dogma for the
cure of all possible disease from leprosy to bunions. It was necessary,
she thought, to have a stronger pill. She compounded it in the form that
"matter," including the "mortal body," is not only "the objective state of
the mortal mind," but that mortal mind is unmixed, "error," entailing all
sin, disease, and death. Yet "error" is really "nothing"; or say something
only to be _denied_. The duty of life, "_in Science_," is to make this
denial effective. Matter, sin, disease, are absolute illusions and
delusions of "mortal mind," which itself is just "error," to be wiped out.
Now say so, and they are all gone. Or if they persist in seeming to be
anywhere, be more firm with them. Sing the denial, as well as say it. Keep
it up. Let nothing else intervene for a second. Let every paragraph you
write be made of it. Give it ten thousand different forms, and each form
ten thousand variations. If you fully concentrate your whole mind on this
"divine" business, and pay the full price for learning it, you will
elevate yourself into "perfect harmony" with "Immortal Mind." When you
accomplish this undertaking, impurity and evil, sin, disease and death,
will disappear as the shadow of their original nothingness, which they
always are and ever were.
Here is the whole real substance of "the precious volume," _Science and
Health_, including Mrs. Eddy's marvelous _Key to the Scriptures_. Still,
the holy tome has some interesting particulars.
On opening it, and journeying only as far as page 2, one finds that, while
"Christian Science" is copyrighted property, "the Divine Spirit" was the
real author of it; for Mrs. Eddy explicitly declares that through
"Christian Science" the Divine Spirit testified to her, and that the
testimony unfolded her one basic, forever-echoed assumption that "matter"
has nothing in it but "falsity."
Next comes up the Platonic conception--which, unfortunately for Plato, he
neglected to copyright--that the Principle of Mind, with its reflection
or "idea," constitutes the real universe. Mrs. Eddy pronounces this
philosophical conception a scientific fact; but it was not "proved to the
senses"--which, by the way, _never perceive anything but "error"_--until
"Christian Science revealed it." Then it was proved "incontrovertibly,
absolutely and divinely," by repairing Mrs. Eddy's back after a fall on
ice.
From time immemorial, the history of philosophy has been familiar with the
thought that the human body is a reflex and product of mind; a practical
reality for all earthly conditions and purposes, but resolvable, from the
view of spirit, into simply an objective appearance. The thought, too, has
been frequent in poetry. Three hundred years ago Spenser sang:
"So every spirit, as it is more pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
_For, of the soul, the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make._
Yet Mrs. Eddy claims this doctrine, too, as her "discovery," though, with
her, it is not merely "mind," but the "mortal" or "misnamed" article,
that produces the body. All such "mind" is unalloyed "error," and the
body, or apparition of this error, is another error. It was this
"discovery," she says, that led to her infallible proposition, the
all-inclusiveness of Immortal Mind and the all-nothingness of matter,
which she made the bed-rock of her all-healing "Science."
Matter being Nothing, and our bodies being nothing but error, there is
great use, notwithstanding, for the one genuine medicine, "Christian
Science." "Physical healing," with "mental healing" thrown in, is the
large wholesale business of which Mother Eddy is proprietor and director.
In the last analysis, according to the preface of _Science and Health_,
this medicine is "Divine Principle." Such a remedy naturally dispels the
unfounded belief of matter, the unfounded imaginings of sickness and sin,
which drop out of supposed reality, and so out of existence.
As the term "Christian Science" is necessarily suggestive of Christian
history, even Mrs. Eddy has not quite claimed the whole product of
Christianity as originating in _Science and Health_. She does admit, with
pious candor, that God imparted the _spirit_ of Christian Science to Jesus
and the Apostles. But the _letter_ is another thing. "The absolute letter"
waited for Mary Baker G. Eddy; and, were the blessed lady a living
kaleidoscope, she could hardly add to the combinations and varieties in
which she presents this claim to her readers.
Eddyism proclaims One God, all-inclusive, whose highest title is "Immortal
Mind." But, "in Science," this God, being all-inclusive, as Unity,
Identity, and Goodness--so otherwise all-_ex_clusive--there is no room
anywhere for a Devil, or say, rather, the _recognition_ of one. If God is
not only all, but all-good, no opposite to this principle can exist.
However, there is "mortal mind," or "sense," with its image and creation,
"matter," and in these are sin and disease. Still, mortal mind, matter,
sin, disease, have no relation or reference to God. _He_ "fills all
Space."[34] _They_ subsist neither by His creation nor permission. Hence
they _can not be_--they are just _naught_.
But hold! Christian Science, with _Science and Health_, being present
avatars to dispel sin and cure disease, such a science and such a book
necessarily admit sickness and sin, both implicitly and explicitly. Now
what is to be done in such a dilemma? Why, mortal mind, matter, evil, and
all afflictions, while "nothing," are a kind of nothing that may be
mentioned as "error" and ultimate "self-nullity." Thus, while Eddy
Science, alias "Christian Science," has no real Devil, it has a very
practical _seeming_ Devil, and whips him from stump to stump with logic
worse than himself. Finally, as he is not "substance," but "shadow," you
knock him out by calling him names.
But the doctrine of the Trinity, as "demonstrated in Science," is the best
abstract of the Eddy theology. This Trinity consists of one self-identical
"Father-and-Mother God"; Man, "the Idea" or "Reflection"; then Christian
Science, "the Holy Comforter."
The position of man, as theologized by Mrs. Eddy, is, if anything, more
terribly mixed than that of the Devil. Man is "the image of God"; but, as
God is _All_, man has "no real individuality." He cannot have personality
of his own, as God has no "separability." Still this "God's idea," named
man, somehow takes on an imaginary state, named "mortal mind," and this
imaginary state has a dream of error and misery named "Sense." Human
individuality, mortal mind, and sense, are all, in reality, null and void.
Man, however, being God's idea and reflection, can never lose his
unpossessed "true self." The divine contradictions of _Science and Health_
are here insurmountable. Let no man try to rationalize them. Mrs. Eddy
well remarks in her _Retrospection and Introspection_, that "Divine
Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the
eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities."
O Lord, how long!
Oh, bosh, how strong!
The fact is that any long-continued reading of _Science and Health_, with
the innocence to imagine it either true, difficult or profound, is enough
to turn a weak mind idiotic. To a trained thinker, the only danger from
the book is an attack of nausea or a hemorrhage from laughing.