Metaphysics demands the unqualified surrender of sense testimony upon every occasion and under every circumstance because personal sense is the very acme of the belief of life in matter, of a knowledge of good and evil. The Christian metaphysician is guided by the dynamic power of Principle, the unswerving, unequivocal might of Mind which never stoops nor tarries to temporize with the human seeming. He who proved upon innumerable occasions what Life really is, said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Judging persons, places, events, circumstances, or activities of any nature, then, from the standpoint of personal sense is but crediting faulty human estimates and accepting the lie without challenge.
Beginning on page 308 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy wisely admonishes students of Christian Science in the following words: "Christian Science is taught through its divine Principle which is invisible to corporeal sense. A material human likeness is the antipode of man in the image and likeness of God. Hence, a finite person is not the model for a metaphysician. I earnestly advise all Christian Scientists to remove from their observation or study the personal sense of any one, and not to dwell in thought upon their own or others' corporeality, either as good or evil. According to Christian Science, material personality is an error in premise, and must result in erroneous conclusions." Here we are advised to repudiate personal sense testimony regarding ourselves as well as others, for when all is said and done, what is it that says: "I have a bad disposition;" "I inherited tubercular tendencies;" "I am a failure so there is no use in my trying to succeed;" "I cannot give a testimony in the Wednesday evening meeting because I get so frightened"? Now it may be comparatively easy to realize that the foregoing does not issue from Principle. The test comes when one is forced to turn the analytical searchlight upon his fleshly idols whom he has endowed with goodness, strength, and power impossible to the flesh. Then all the savagery of the primitive rushes to the fore to defend its gods.
How many have escaped this very common snare of mortal mind? Has not each one of us some personal deity with feet of clay whom we have clothed with godlike characteristics and to whom we instinctively turn under pressure or stress of circumstances, while God stands waiting, neglected but ever patient? Then again, how many have successfully passed the Waterloo of personal sense so as to readily repudiate egotism, scandal, personal domination, trickery, treachery, hypocrisy, or greed when these parade as person? Do we tabulate all human frailties as false conditions of thought, or do we accept the lie and enlist ourselves as mortal mind's advocate, deserving the appellative by a shrug, an elevated brow, an innuendo, or by bluntly branding a fellow being with some un-Christ like quality?
