An editorial in The Daily Oregonian of June 10, 1906, in commenting upon the distinctive features of the Christian Science movement makes a statement concerning the practice of Christian Science which may be pondered with profit. The premise from which the editor's conclusion is drawn, the mistaken assumption that Christian Science in its idealism is in any way based upon Berkeley's philosophy, is at once challenged by the reader who understands somewhat of Christian Science, but the deduction in the editorial is interesting and straight to the point, and for that reason the paragraph is here quoted. The editor says:—
"Berkeley taught that all reality is in thought. Hume accepted his teaching. 'In my study' he said, 'I cannot refute it; but when I go out upon the street I cannot believe it.' Mrs. Eddy's followers hold to Berkeley's teaching, not only in the study but also in the street. Here is where they diverge from the philosophers. 'The world,' say the latter, 'is pure thought. Nevertheless it appears to us in all respects as if it were material. Our belief cuts no figure.' Mrs. Eddy holds that the idealistic belief does cut a figure. We must not only believe that the universe is pure thought, she teaches, but we must also act as if it were."
A more thorough investigation than the writer of this editorial had evidently given Christian Science, leads one to see why Christian Scientists do not "hold to Berkeley's teaching," but the fact that they are required to hold to the distinct idealism which Christian Science teaches them, "not only in the study but also in the street," is the admitted point of departure between Christian Science and the prevailing forms of philosophy and scholasticism. Many good philosophers have seen in analysis the transitory nature of human experience, the unsubstantiality of matter, the unreliability of the testimony of the physical senses; yet because their philosophy has begun and ended in the study, because it has been a pleasant intellectual occupation and nothing more, it has offered little of a redemptive nature to mankind. To admit the theory that matter is unreal, and then to proceed upon the daily course of an existence which reckons matter to be the one palpable substance, is to combine a philosophic perception with a material life-habit, and to attempt the maintenance of a mental household divided against itself. Mrs. Eddy has made it clear in all her writings, noticeably in her 1901 Message to The Mother Church and the article "Science and Philosophy" published in her book "Miscellaneous Writings," that her teaching is not founded (as this editorial states) "upon the philosophy of idealism which Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and their compeers have elaborated," but upon the pure, simple, spiritual understanding which Christ Jesus proved to be of value "in the street" quite as much as "in the study." Christian Scientists, therefore, are adhering not to an idealism which is a clever product of the human intellect, but to a revelation which has reached the world through the awakened spiritual discernment vouchsafed to the pure in heart.
