Idealism is the tendency to idealize, or to affirm "the pre-eminent value of imagination as compared with faithful copying of nature," as a dictionary states. The individual who is known as an idealist is expecting the transformation of a given material situation into a more beautiful one to bring him complete happiness. It is of interest to students of Christian Science to compare this with a statement by Mary Baker Eddy in her "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 217): "True idealism is a divine Science, which combines in logical sequence, nature, reason, and revelation." Here idealism is not something illusive and imaginary, but is that which proves perfection to be an ever-present fact, independent of material circumstances and conditions.
To put this true idealism into practice the student of Christian Science bases his reasoning on a firm foundation of facts. He knows that according to the first chapter of Genesis the heaven and earth were created by God, who also made man in His image and likeness, and that God saw that His creation was good. As the individual grows in the understanding that the universe of God is spiritual and perfect, he begins to see the unreality of a material universe. He learns that God has continually maintained His creation in its original entirety. Nothing —no thing, no person, place, or circumstance—has ever interfered with, interrupted, or hindered this perfection. Man as the image of God lives and has his being in this spiritual realm. No human experience has touched his real selfhood at any point. God, good, has always surrounded him completely and entirely. This is the man of whom Mrs. Eddy says (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 272), "The real man was, is, and ever shall be the divine ideal, that is, God's image and likeness; and Christian Science reveals the divine Principle, the example, the rule, and the demonstration of this idealism."
A student of Christian Science prided herself on being what she termed an idealist. Over a long period of time there had been a reaching out for unachievable goals, a constant desire to want material conditions in her home to change in order that she might experience real joy. Because she had looked for human completeness and happiness in a material world, she had entertained a continual sense of frustration and joylessness, as well as a belief that she was being deprived of happiness.
