THE questions are often asked: What is the attitude of Christian Science towards modern inventions? Does it hold aloof from the progressive conditions of the day, or pass them by? In view of the recognized teaching of Christian Science as to the nature of matter and materialism, these are not unreasonable questions, and it is interesting to note that Mrs. Eddy herself foresaw the situation and met it unequivocally. When an interviewer once asked what was her attitude toward "the pursuit of modern material inventions," she replied, in part (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 345):"We cannot oppose them. They all tend to newer, finer, more etherealized ways of living." And she added: "We use them, we make them our figures of speech. They are preparing the way for us."
These questions may be answered by asking another. What does mankind hold progress to be,and to what goal or end is its progress directed? To the latter part of this question there seems to be no definite answer from the material standpoint. No one appears to have perceived or designated any particular purpose for the evolution of a multitude of things, such as the immense facilities for speed and for overcoming distance, the accumulation of wealth, for labor saving devices, or other products of the so-called human mind's ingenuity. Some of the world's teachers will say that the goal of it all is to promote human dignity, to prove mankind's dominion over nature; others, that it is part of God's plan for showing forth His goodness toward His creation. But when all this apparent power can be devoted to the destructive purpose of war, neither of these answers seems satisfactory.
There is no doubt that catastrophes constantly awaken the human consciousness to the fact that true progress must be looked for elsewhere than in the realm of material development, however ingenious, and that it can be found only in Mind, in the realm of right ideas. All over the world there are indications of a change in customs, education, laws, industry, governments. Old ways, old methods, old habits, are being brought under review, and what Burns called "man's inhumanity to man" has been minimized. A point, however, which the world does not recognize, is that it is not so much the material production which needs to be altered as the thinking which governs the application of modern inventions.
