THERE is a certain class of thinkers who affect to believe that Christian Science has no valid title to the term "Science" as applied to Christianity. To a materialistic philosophy science and religion are incompatible. Only that is subject to scientific scrutiny, says the materialist, which is evident to the senses. Material substances may be classified, analyzed, and understood, and the accumulation of knowledge about matter and material laws constitutes all there is of science. In other words, there can be no science which does not have to do with matter or material laws.
Believing thus, the materialist does not always find it easy to reconcile science and religion, nor to accept the designation "Christian Science" as by any possibility applying to a body of thought which is accurate and definite enough to earn the honorable title of science. Believing thus, the materialist is naturally induced to think lightly of Christian Science, and he may even be prevented from making an examination of it, because of the initial shock to his preconceived notions as to what constitutes science; and yet, a careful study of Science and Health, in a scientific spirit, which means an impartial spirit, has convinced many that scientific Christianity is a demonstrable fact, that there is a science of correct thinking which is far more important to the human race than any of the so-called natural sciences. "There are more things," says Hamlet, "in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
What, after all, is science? The word itself is derived from the Latin, meaning "to know," and one definition is "knowledge of principles or general laws." Christian Science is Christian knowing. It is a knowledge of Principle, First Cause, and the great spiritual laws which underlie all real existence. It classifies and analyzes mental phenomena and the modes of divine Mind with the same nicety of precision which characterizes any of the material sciences, so called.
