THE subject of inherited disease, so called, is one with which all are familiar because of its frequent recognition by modern educational theories, hereditary influence being recognized by medical science as a cause or predisposing influence in disease. Heredity thus forms the topic for many formal discussions in medical societies; it is recognized scientifically in institutions for the treatment of insanity, dipsomania, confirmed inebriety, and degeneracy, and in many books and treatises written by physical scientists, experts, criminologists, and publicists. Likewise in popular belief it is regarded with more or less fear as an entity, the fear amounting in some instances to a superstition, a belief that it is an agency divinely ordained for the punishment of the children of men who have sinned in ages agone,— the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children. Here the question arises, Is there such a thing as hereditary disease? If so, what is its nature, and can its causative law or its nothingness be disclosed to the scientific gaze?
Christian Science is the most scientific healing method that has ever been known to humanity, in that it teaches men to analyze, not matter, but thought, thought being that which formulates one's understanding of any given thing, including what he believes to be his ultimate conclusion regarding it, which conclusion he calls "science," or "knowledge reduced to system." But a so-called knowledge is not necessarily the truth regarding a thing, it may be the mere expression of a man's perception of phenomena, the basic law governing which is unknown, and possibly undiscoverable, because of the limitations of the observer's thought and working formula.
That this has ofttimes been true may be seen in the fact that the recognized scientific dictum of yesterday often becomes the exploded hypothesis of today, necessitating a radical revision of its text-books, if not a revolutionary revision of its foundational philosophy. It was therefore but the product, not necessarily of erroneous observation of material phenomena, but of imperfect thought methods, thought which itself had not been through the crucible of scientific analysis, thought which, though intangible itself, recognizes and admits as scientific evidence only that which is tangible or measurable by the physical senses; therefore unlike its own nature, and infinitely inferior to itself.
