ACCORDING to appearances, mortal man is a bundle of contradictory qualities, the world an arena for contending forces, and human experience a composite of good and evil. Neither the world nor men nor existence seems wholly good or wholly bad, however, but a blending of the two. This apparent synthesis of opposites or discordants has confused thinkers throughout the ages. Assuming that evil is an entity or actuality, they have by turns tried to explain it, subdue it, or even reclaim it—that is, rescue its victims; but at best they have met with only partial success.
Clearly, a universe wherein good and evil grapple with each other for supremacy, like a universe of chance presided over by a Supreme Being vengeful or indifferent to His creatures, could not endure. No more could Life continue indefinitely if vulnerable to disease. In the light of reason, error, "the devil," whether in the form of evil or of disease, is seen to be what Christ Jesus so graphically pronounced it, "a liar and the father of lies" (Moffatt).
Since the time of Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy has been the first teacher thus uncompromisingly to face evil—sin and disease—and denounce it as mesmeric or supposititious. Nor has she stopped here. Refusing to confuse sin and disease with true being, and to concede them even a seeming place in the universe of Principle, she has indicted them as outlaws, and by practical application of the spiritual fact which annuls their claims has put them outside the pale of normal human experience. Thereby has she definitely isolated and refuted error in all its forms.
