THERE are many who recall that on first reading Science and Health they were impressed, and withal perchance annoyed, by Mrs. Eddy's frequent repetition of statements respecting the unreality of matter and of evil. The subject being approached from so many points of view and expressed in so many phraseologies, some may have reached the hasty conclusion that a negation is the chief theme of her teaching. In fact, however, this is but the logical opposite of her theme, namely, that God, divine Truth, Life, and Love, is All.
As one proceeds in his study of Science, and thinks more deeply and scientifically of the facts of human experience and of the nature of the world problem, he comes to apprehend the sufficient reason for this emphasis. He sees that our belief respecting the reality or unreality of evil relates itself to and altogether determines our thought in every department of human life. Especially is it significant in shaping our most vital concepts, namely, those regarding the nature of God and man. Dualism and polytheism, with all their sequent idolatries, are the direct offspring of the belief that evil has substance and power. The greatest rebuke and appeal of the early ages was voiced in that vibrant call of Moses, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," and yet it was none other than this uniquely basic truth that the Jewish people, together with all other nations and races, have most insistently forgotten.
False sense respecting the nature of substance is the decayed heart of all anthropomorphism. Men are forever relating truth to error, forever coordinating good with that evil whose accepted reality has blighted Christian faith in all the ages; and in declaring and demonstrating, even in part, that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468), Christian Scientists are rendering a service to mankind which is of inestimable value; they are reawakening the Christian world to what is logically involved in the theoretically conceded premise of all Christian doctrine. The moment one's thought of the divine nature becomes tolerant of any least contradiction, that moment he can but become indulgent toward contradictions in his concept of the universe, and he is disposed in so far to attribute the strifes and tragedies of so-called natural law to the will of an inscrutable Providence. Just here most people give up trying to solve the human problem. They say, "What's the use?" and sit down in mental dormancy to await events.
