"WHAT a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!" Thus Shakespeare; while Mrs. Eddy writes, "The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets one free to master the infinite idea. This conviction shuts the door on death and opens it wide towards immortality" (Science and Health, p. 90). When mortals see themselves from the depths of their temptations, they are at least ready to appreciate Goethe's contention that men are capable of doing or being a party to all the evil that has been or ever will be done. When, on the other hand, we see ourselves from the heights of our desires and aspirations, even as we hope and feel we are seen and loved of God, we feel that we are capable of doing, or being a party to, all the good that ever has been or ever will be sought after, loved, and done.
What man really is, as God's image and likeness, and what we may accomplish as we awaken to this likeness, does not so fully appear as does what mortal and sinful man would do if he were left free to follow out all of his evil desires, suggestions, or temptations. We as yet only "know in part," and only conceive or hope "in part." Even Jesus, and those who have stood closest to him in spirit and achievement, saw and taught that all the heights and depths and glories of the nature and possibilities of man in conscious union and harmony with God, have not as yet been demonstrated, nor even expressed in terms of human conception, aspiration, and hope.
While mortal man professes to powers and virtues he knows that he does not possess, and desires evils that he is afraid to have known, we find that as we get glimpses of man as he should be, and as he really is as God's idea, he is endowed with a nature which only perfection can satisfy and with faculties which will enable him to realize this nature. There is nothing too noble and Godlike for him to aspire after and to attain to. At heart we do not feel that anything is too good to be true. We believe in the aspirations, hopes, and prophecies of the best men and women, as well as in the good deeds and mighty works that are attributed to them, because everything good and desirable seems reasonable and possible. Indeed we feel that the reasonableness or the possibility of realizing any spiritual gift is in direct proportion to its ability to satisfy our highest sense of good.
