SOME time ago a friend told me he thought idealism so vague and mystical that it was of little use in practical life. Since then I have been thinking much about the right meaning of idealism, how under present conditions it can help us to work out some of the great problems with which we must engage whether we will or not. The world we see is a world of suffering. Evil, sickness, and death seem to be everywhere. We therefore need an uplifting and transforming power, available for humanity's uplifting. What constitutes true idealism, and how it can help us, are questions which are worthy of our consideration.
Perhaps I may best convey my understanding of idealism (there can be but one idealism) by stating some of its synonyms. In Christian Science we understand the ideal to be the spiritual, the real, the perfect, the absolute, the substance of the universe. The basis of its idealism is perfect, infinite Mind, or Principle, from which all things proceed. This Mind we call God. Starting with this premise of a perfect God, it follows logically that His works are perfect. This is the reasoning of the Christian Scientist, that the perfect ideas of a perfect God constitute the real universe and are its substance; but this universe appears to mortals as imperfect, and this appearance is to them matter, according to their present degree of materiality or spirituality. In a church with colored windows, I look out through one pane of glass and see a blue world, through another I see a red world, etc., but through an uncolored pane of pure glass I see the world as it really appears.
This may illustrate the outlook of mortals, who "see through a glass darkly," colored by their own mentality or beliefs. Sin, sickness, and discord of all kinds cause them to see an inverted or perverted image of the real or ideal. Looking out from a sick mentality, or through sick eyes, we see a sick world; through impure eyes, we see an impure world. The true idealist says the world as God made it is good, and this is the message Mrs. Eddy brings to the world. If God made all things, and called them "good" and "very good," they will become so to us when we attain to a degree of spirituality in which we can see rightly the real substance, the spiritual and ideal; and this is all that really exists. Paul had a glimpse of this when he said, "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." John the Revelator attained to that spiritual condition wherein he saw the spiritual or real, not by going to another realm, but as the only universe and in which he then was. His outlook or mentality was changed, not his location. Christ Jesus saw the real more clearly than any one on this earth, and he was the supreme idealist. Because of perfect obedience to and communion with a perfect God, he saw God as no other man saw Him. He saw His fatherhood, all the divine attributes, and he reflected them through his spirituality. An object reflects light according to its purity, and through the purity of Christ Jesus the infinite Mind was reflected, showing us "the image of the invisible God." Because of the clearness of vision, by which he saw the ideal or real man and universe, he did his great work.
