THE term error is used in Christian Science to designate all false beliefs and their consequences. Error is a phenomenon, an appearance; it is sometimes an appearance of truth, but it is not truth. If error were truth it would be eternal, hence indestructible. The fact that error is frequently destroyed proves that it is not any part of God's real universe. The fact that error can ever be destroyed, even in one instance, proves that it can always be destroyed. Therefore, the question of destroying error is a question of knowing how, and the right application of this understanding. The doctrine and practice of Christian Science are chiefly directed to this supreme achievement. If a Christian Scientist should fall short of such achievement, in whole or in part, the reason for it is thus made apparent, and his roadway to better results indicated.
Error, that is, false beliefs and their consequences, covers the wide range of human unhappiness. It includes everything which is not absolutely good, perfect, harmonious, beautiful; in brief, everything which is not true. From this it follows that Jesus taught the only effectual remedy, — "The truth shall make you free." And this one effectual remedy is for every phase of error, or false belief, call it by any name you please. — sickness, vicious habit, sin, death, etc. To admit that it is the right remedy is by necessary implication to admit that there can be no other remedy which is always reliable because always right. And human experience justifies this inference. Every one manifestly has the right to refuse his or her mental consent to every form and phase of error. Indeed, such refusal is one's duty, but of course such mental refusal must not be made a pretext or excuse for any kind of unauthorized physical resistance or unauthorized mental interference. Whether physical resistance, by tongue or otherwise, shall be resorted to raises a line of questions wholly apart from the scope of this article. Physical resistance to error, either active or passive, it must be remembered, is wholly different from the refusal to give one's mental consent to error.
Does the refusal to give one's mental consent to error lead to practical results in its overcoming? Let us answer, first, that such practical results most certainly do follow, in many instances at least. One person has a habit of using profane language, let us suppose: another manifests a hasty temper, and is addicted to quarreling: another is peevish sullen, or discontented, or foolishly yields to the temptations of a fault-finding tongue. These persons can better themselves by refusing to consent to these errors; they may even wholly reform in this way; and how obvious in these and like illustrations, that the errors are directly traceable to mental causes.
