In the 1908 edition of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy added a paragraph at the end of the chapter, "Christian Science Practice," which she considered of sufficient importance to have it brought to the special attention of her followers through a notice in the Christian Science Sentinel, asking them to give it their daily consideration. (See The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 237.) The paragraph reads (Science and Health, p. 442), "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake."
In this present hour, when a false psychology is being unscrupulously applied in an effort to influence the conclusions of people, both as classes and as masses, it is more than ever important for individuals to learn how to be a law to themselves, so that they will not blindly carry out the programs of trained propagandists or be caught in the net of some ambitious leader. Today there is need to cultivate an intelligent mental freedom. This includes the freedom to distinguish right from wrong, to discern between appeals to selfishness and fear and what God, infinite Mind, is proclaiming and revealing to individual consciousness, unmolested by verbal argument and unmoved by the silent pressure of multiplied human opinions.
It is plain that being a law to oneself is at the very basis of true self-government. It not only implies a freedom from belief in many minds, but also implies that one's thinking should have some stable and permanent foundation. Christian Science furnishes this true basis by revealing God as the divine Principle of man. This means that God, the one infinite and ever-present Mind, is the source of all real intelligence.
In every human situation the determining factor is thought. There is nothing higher than the intelligence which shapes all one's activity. What one thinks or believes—what he accepts as true about himself and others—molds his human experience: it colors his outlook and governs his health and his success. Since what one thinks exerts its influence so constantly over all the aspects of his life, how essential for him that he should ascertain what it is that is controlling his thought!
Mrs. Eddy, being spiritually aware of the supreme control of Soul, the one divine Principle, expressing itself in man, was for this reason keenly alert to the error that claimed to dominate human thinking. She saw that the false beliefs of mortals, contrary to the operation of divine Science, were dictated by suggestion. Few people are aware how much of their thinking is influenced by the flood of human opinions, the conflicting cross-currents set in motion by the supposed activity of a multitude of human minds. By conversation, association, imagination, and material methods of education is this interplay of thought maintained.
Therefore Mrs. Eddy frequently reminded her students of the necessity for defending themselves against mental malpractice. One's refuge from this Babel of lies is in his conscious adherence to the spiritual facts of being. In Science and Health (p. 458) our Leader instructs us how to become a law unto ourselves where she writes, "The Christianly scientific man reflects the divine law, thus becoming a law unto himself."
What does it mean to reflect the divine law? It means to acknowledge and adore God, divine Life and Truth and Love, as the Supreme Ruler of the universe, the one all-inclusive Mind or Soul, supplying to individual man all that is real and good—all life, strength, ability, intelligence, inspiration, spirituality. It means to acknowledge that one's true selfhood is not a material or mortal personality, but is the individual expression or idea of God, made and governed and sustained by its divine Principle. In a word, it means to acknowledge to oneself that man is the likeness of God, His child or His reflection.
Obviously, since there is but one Mind, there can be no transference of mortal thought. And since man is the expression or reflection of this one supreme Mind or Spirit, he is never under any other influence. These scientific conclusions established in thought and in daily action enable one truly to be a law to oneself, for the reason that man is then expressing the nature of his divine Principle; and Principle, God, is the source of all true law. "In the spiritual Genesis of creation," writes Mrs. Eddy (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 258), "all law was vested in the Lawgiver, who was a law to Himself."
Law is inherent in the supremacy belonging to God, the all-acting Mind. Nothing can make a law against God; for the divine Mind or Truth is the source of spiritual power or law. No material conditions or so-called laws of health, no creeds of theology, no selfish prayers, no boastful pretensions or malicious purposes, are known to God. He is eternal, immutable, complete, conscious of nought outside His own infinity. Isaiah represents God as saying, "Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any."
Such is the quality of Mind, such the nature of God, whom man reflects. In the proportion that God is understood as divine Principle, His supremacy and absoluteness can be comprehended. Realizing this in some measure, one becomes a law unto himself, obedient to the divine direction and control. Christ Jesus said of himself, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Conscious of Life, one loses his fear of death; governed by Truth, one is quick to detect and reject each counterfeit suggestion; reflecting the divine Principle, Love, one fulfills his obligations to his nation, his church, his business, his home. In obedience to God, he manifests the spirit of freedom, uprightness, certainty, dominion. Thus he is a law, not unto others, but to himself.
