Many who are not Christian Scientists, who have never seen or admitted any demonstration of healing, find it difficult to accept its teachings because these do not appeal to their common sense. Being contrary to "fact," as such persons would claim, they seem unreasonable, and hence they are not accepted. Unless the investigator happens to be suffering from some physical ailment, and in despair of relief by any other method is driven to turn to the advocates of these ideals and accept their assertions, he may fail to see the truth that is in them.
We often hear this criticism, that Christian Scientists deceive themselves when they affirm perfection in the face of facts to the contrary. The statement to the patient that he can have no pain, when he has a very keen sense of it, or the declaration to an invalid that man is perfect, unless these statements are explained to them, is likely to beget antagonism against that which when understood will be conceded to be true.
This is called the age of science, and surely the roads which science has built and leveled have opened the way for a wonderful progress. There is, however, a sense of antagonism between the natural sciences and Christian Science which results primarily from their opposite tendencies, one toward materialism and the other toward idealism; but the hard highway of scientific method may be traveled in either direction.
