"Knowledge is power," wrote Francis Bacon, the famous English philosopher and statesman, over three centuries ago. According to an encyclopedia, he was "the great forerunner of the modern system of scientific research." Since his time the vast increase in human knowledge has produced ever greater manifestations of so-called material power, culminating in our age with atomic energy. But Bacon could hardly have anticipated mankind's need today for protection from the forces this knowledge has unleashed. Many great thinkers and statesmen now aver that men must look to a higher source of power and law than matter or the human mind if humanity is to be saved from self-destruction.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 196): "If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom. It is but a blind force. Man has 'sought out many inventions,' but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge." On the same page, speaking of disease, sin, and death, she declares: "No law supports them. They have no relation to God wherewith to establish their power."
Mrs. Eddy's scientific research was based primarily upon a deep study and love of the Bible. She perceived the full significance of Deity's self-declaration therein, that "power belongeth unto God" (Ps. 62:11). She saw, therefore, that in reality power must be good and beneficent, not evil and destructive. She also discerned that all true Science and law must be included in the knowledge of God, divine Principle, who is omniscient, or all-knowing, as well as omnipotent. Christ Jesus taught and proved these facts. He was our Way-shower.
