A thorough investigation of Christian Science by one who is not a Christian Scientist is no light undertaking. It would be an easy task if the investigator's equipment were but the narrow intellectualism with which many even brilliant men have approached it. He might then soon run against points that would bring his investigation to a fairly brief termination—some points that are peculiar to Christian Science and others that have never been satisfactorily answered by any religion. But if lie is possessed of broader sympathies and insight than are included in mere brilliancy of intellect, they will carry him beyond where many investigators of another kind have stopped.
Some of those who have essayed this enterprise have felt that they met with difficulty in trying to obtain satisfactory information from Christian Scientists themselves —have felt that Christian Scientists had a point of view which did not charitably meet an outsider half-way. But, even if this were so, it is only partly the fault of Christian Scientists. The difficulty in part lies in the nature of the subject. Christian Science has to do with ultimate truths, and it thus enters the realm of idealistic philosophy.
There has never been a system of idealistic philosophy that has not contradicted finite experience, and so these systems do not read reasonably unless they are studied as a whole. A good illustration of this may be found in modern English idealism, whose leading exponent is the Hon. Richard Bordon Haldane, England's minister of war. In Mr. Haldane's two volumes of extremely interesting but rather heavy reading (The Gifford Lectures 1902-3, The Pathway to Reality) we have the seemingly absurd paradox of the war secretary of a great nation expounding the theory that in absolute reality there is no evil and no matter!
