THAT there is a use as well as an abuse of the function of criticism, is evident from the words of Jesus, who, besides saying, "Judge not," also says, "Judge righteous judgment." The verb used in the Greek is the same in both cases, and bears the same meaning as the noun from which the English word "critic" is derived, that is. to separate, to choose, to estimate. That the meaning of this word has become a good deal narrowed in the general use is plain, as for instance, when the neophyte in Christian Science is told that one of his first efforts must be to stop the habit of criticism, he at once concludes that he is to stop finding fault; or, when one hears that so-and-so is very critical, he understands that so-and-so has a habit of picking out all the weak points of whatever subject with which he may be confronted.
Of course to the men of letters, to the philosophers of this world, these are truisms, but as the majority of us are neither the one nor the other, but (as Carlyle has truly said) "mostly fools," it is just as well to look into these questions and see clearly what they mean to the student of Christian Science. The function of criticism is really to separate good from bad, grain from chaff, wheat from tares, to store up the former and to let the latter go. The general practice, however, is to reverse the final part of ' the process and to magnify the bad qualities, while the good are almost unnoticed. As Shakespeare put it,—
The evil that men do lives after them ;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
