AN infant playing on the hole of a venomous serpent, a young child leading wild animals together with domestic animals—would not such a scene startle and amaze almost any spectator? Yet, this is the prophetic picture portrayed by Isaiah of the days when the understanding of Truth shall have become universal. But what is the power which will prevent the serpent's sting and control the creatures' jaws and claws? Something more than weapons or mere physical force is needed to fulfill the prophetic vision of the time when all living creatures shall dwell in harmony with one another.
Certainly, without carnal or bestial instincts to animate them the creatures are harmless. Back of the serpent's sting and the lion's ferocity are the impulses of the carnal mind—will power and animality. Back of the action that would cause one mortal to strike or kill another are the supposititious thought-forces of fear and self-preservation: anger, envy, and hatred. It is the mental nature of animality which impels the act that poisons, devours. In "The People's Idea of God" (p. 10) Mary Baker Eddy says, "Thought is the essence of an act, and the stronger element of action." True safety, therefore, lies not in fighting and killing mortals and beasts but in dissolving the essence, called animality: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
It is in the mental realm, therefore, that we deal basically and effectively with the so-called forces of the carnal mind. Animal nature is overcome not so much through struggling with its phenomena as through spiritual means. Can it be doubted that the divine nature is supreme over animality? What, indeed, is ignorant brute force before spiritual understanding! Are wisdom, goodness, and holiness to be dominated by blind, headlong will? No. Certainly the essence of pure Mind, the spirituality that vitalizes thought, can quench any sensual element of the fleshly nature. Trueness, tenderness, and moral strength are all thought-essences of divine Science, the infant idea which gently leads the receptive mind above the lower elements of human nature.
