BEGINNERS in the study of Christian Science sometimes claim that older students use terms which confuse the unlearned, but experience shows that even a slight understanding of the subject renders its phraseology intelligible to the observing student; and he in turn finds this thought surprising, so fully does learning alter the point of view.
It seems to the writer that a custom more confusing, more apt to hinder the gain of true understanding, and one almost universal among students old and new, is that of using familiar words without explaining their significance in Christian Science. Many words are used by all men, cultured or unlettered, and a more or less correct meaning is given them in the thought of the user. Some fortunate circumstance turns his attention to Christian Science, and there he encounters the well-known word. If he is observant, he soon detects that its usage does not wholly conform to his former concept, and the resultant inquiry leads him into broader fields, widening his horizon and lifting him above the level of ordinary and unquestioned thought. So stimulated, he scrutinizes each word closely, thus availing himself of the true education gainable by every student. Those who smile at the "dictionary habit" of Christian Scientists, learn with surprise that the dictionary is more often consulted for words in daily use than for those less common.
A familiar word will serve for example. A little child begins school. Assuming that he has not "learned" anything before, in his early lessons he is taught to count and to write figures. He begins with "one." In all possible ways figure and number are impressed upon him until he knows "one," its appearance, meaning, value. Then he is taught to count and write "two," and he finds it a larger number than "one," and therefore more important. He learns other figures in succession, until "one" seems quite insignificant, and he thinks of it as only the very smallest number. Later "one" is divided and subdivided into fractions, some too small to be reckoned except in figures; but even the smallest can be divided, and another chapter is learned as to the infinitesimal importance of "one." Naturally the child concludes that anything termed "indivisible" must be very, very small, hardly worth notice. He may be told that "the largest number that can be counted must begin with one," but this changes not a whit his idea of "one" as only the beginning of that number which is so very much larger than "one." He remembers how "one" has been divided into parts so small as to be incalculable except in mathematical terms; and the sense of real value disappears in the mist of relative value arising from common usage.
