The attitude of the caviling and the worldly-wise which some of the clergy have assumed toward Mrs. Eddy's contention that the truth of the Master's teaching is to rest upon scientific demonstration, and not upon theological dicta, would suggest that in their devotion to Christ Jesus' words they have quite forgotten his substantiating works. They have manifestly accepted the explanation of things embodied in the philosophy of material evolution without having grasped the spirit of the scientific method, and hence they have failed to apprehend the significance of this method to Christian experience and history. Having become greatly enamored of physical science, they have taken, as one has said, "a whilom suspected enemy home to their hearts as a useful friend," but they have quite overlooked the very important fact that physical scientists hold all theories tentatively, and accept proved propositions alone as a basis of philosophy and formulated statement. This reliance, coupled with honest effort to find the truth, rather than to find support for promulgated theories about the truth, explains the wonderful contributions which these students of so-called natural phenomena have been able to make to the world's advance, especially during the last century. Happily, the incongruity and far-reaching ill effects of the contrasting ecclesiastical position are beginning to appear to churchmen as well as to others.
Physical science begins at the phenomenal end of things; and so long as it is true to itself, it leaves all inquiry as to ultimate causation to metaphysics. It does not undertake to explain the universe, but to describe it, to examine and classify phenomena to the end that their law and order may be known and utilized in furtherance of the human weal. In the pursuit of this endeavor they subject every theory and supposition to the one unvarying demand, Will it prove itself? Is it demonstrable? This is the inductive process, the verification step by step by which physical science has wrought its marvels, and now the question is whether in their enthusiasm over it theologians are willing to recognize its limitations and be true to its method.
All concede that practical demonstration of the truths, he taught was the distinctive feature of our Lord's ministry, and that of his early followers. They proved the power of the "word." Their method was scientific, and hence successful, and those who stand for the unchangeability of divine law are, or ought to be, sure that the same course would secure the same results today. This is the insistence of Christian Science; and its appeal to men is bringing to the surface much evidence of "the inability or indisposition," as one has said, of much of the reigning Christian thought "to reshape itself in obedience to the scientific order which it has already approved." "Theologians speak of theology as a science; are they willing to advance it by using the scientific method?" Thus queries a physical scientist, and a doctor of divinity makes answer when he declares that the most pressing need of the present day is the formal subjection of theology to its proper place in the Christian life, its classification as naught but theory so long and so far as it is not scientifically demonstrated (W. F. Cobb, Hibbert Journal, April, 1911).
