The educated man of today, although rejecting the accusation that he is even now victimized by superstitious beliefs, probably maintains, if he be a student of the history of religion, that superstition has been an aid to civilization. The word concurs in meaning with the Greek word, δєισιδαιμovία, used by Paul, which is derived from two words, one meaning timid, and the other, malevolent spirit. If superstition is thus resolved into its elementary significance—fear of the supernatural —and the practices arising therefrom are based on ignorance and false belief, it cannot be affirmed in the light of Christian Science that superstition has been an auxiliary to civilization. On the contrary, its influence will be perceived to be sinister, and its claims must be and are destroyed by the rationality of Christian Science.
To argue that at any time or in any form superstition has been an agent of advancement or a prop to government is to assert that good can proceed from evil, light from darkness, and that the end justifies the means. Synthetic reasoning establishes that since God, Mind, is infinitely All, the source of never failing good, good could never derive from evil; that because intelligence is omnipresent, ignorance could never form the basis of an equitable and progressive government. If superstition, fear, or ignorance ever seemed to bring a right result, such a result would be but ephemeral and changing belief, without the foundational understanding of good that is necessary to leave a permanent impress upon governments and people. In a frequently used quotation from page 8 of "Unity of Good,"Mrs. Eddy states: "All that is beautiful and good in your individual consciousness is permanent. That which is not so is illusive and fading. My insistence upon a proper understanding of the unreality of matter and evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral, and intellectual, upon the race."
It is no more true that superstition can advance the development of nations and good proceed from evil than it is that the divine Mind is an outgrowth of the human mind which in some mysterious way becomes immortalized. The line of demarcation is unfalteringly clear; for the human or mortal mind, whose synonymity is ignorance, never originated the right sense of anything. Divine Mind is infinite, the only cause; it is never supposedly reformed mortal mind. Similarly, superstition can in no way strengthen respect for government or for the rights of mankind, thereby aiding civilization, because respect implies understanding, and the moment that respect for life and government is founded on understanding, that moment superstition is spontaneously rejected as nothingness, while God and His idea is recognized as inimitably all. From its very nature good must proceed from God alone.
