Truly it has been said that when Mary Baker Eddy gave the name of Christian Science to her unique metaphysical system she challenged the religious and medical thinking of the entire world. Christianity in one doctrinal form or another had long been the dominant religious belief of Western civilization. But to announce that Christianity as revealed to her was a teachable and practicable Science meant that the healing and saving power of God, established on a demonstrable basis, was now available not only as universal religion, but as universal medicine.
Metaphysics, which means beyond or above physics or the physical sense of things, had for centuries been a subject of abstract academic exercise or pursuit, and always on a humanly mental basis; but that a wholly spiritual metaphysics, transcending not only matter but the material mind itself, should be reduced to practical utility in the solving of everyday problems was something entirely new. Accordingly, if Mrs. Eddy's contribution to the health and happiness of mankind were to be summed up briefly, it could be expressed as follows: she fully defined metaphysics as the Science of infinite Mind, its attributes, its relations, and its infinite universe of divine ideas, and then applied her understanding of it in healing practice. She thereby advanced metaphysics to the dignity and verity of demonstrable Science. In this unique accomplishment Mrs. Eddy was the acknowledged pioneer.
Our Leader knew that she was taking a necessarily new and forward step in revealing to human consciousness the truth of God and man; and she took that step alone and unafraid. Writing subsequently in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she said (p. 109), "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration."
