IN Science and Health Mrs. Eddy asks and answers the question: "Why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one? Education alone determines the difference. In reality there is none" (p. 86). Farther on (p. 310) another passage predicts that "thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments." With these statements in mind let us look at some things already familiar to us.
The face is the great mirror of thought, the revealer of human character. Better than any other combination of members or organs of the body, and to a greater extent, does it express not only the transient but the dominant thought of the individual, so that whosoever sees may read. This reading of thought as revealed in expression is far more general than is perhaps at first believed. Consciously we all reveal a score of such ephemeral thoughts as joy, sorrow, mirth, and anger. Without a single mistake we read these in the faces of others when there expressed, and unconsciously we also reveal our thoughts so that those who see us may read them. These are merely the crude readings which are so common as scarcely to be considered as readings at all. It is therefore what might be called the lowest degree of thought-reading, far removed from that of which Mrs. Eddy speaks on page 179 of Science and Health: "Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen; but the spiritual capacity to apprehend thought and to heal by the Truth-power, is won only as man is found, not in self-righteousness, but reflecting the divine nature."
Just as potently does the face reveal thought of a more permanent nature than that instanced above. It tells more plainly than words that this person habitually thinks sadness, that one gladness, another miserliness, still another dishonesty, or hate, or love, or piety. In other words, the thought or thoughts which are continually pondered or held, actually chisel their character, nature, or expression upon the features, so that when the face resumes its natural expression after being temporarily dominated by some transient thought, this dominant one, or combination of several, reappears as from an eclipse. Thus "a man's wisdom [or right thought] maketh his face to shine," mirrors itself, and necessarily reveals not only its own character, but that of the one who thinks it; for as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he."
