One of the greatest lessons to be found in the Bible is that one's defense against evil depends upon an innocent heart. David sang (Ps. 7:10), "My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart." Daniel's experience in the lions' den illustrates the immunity one gains from innocency. To Darius, the king, Daniel said (6:22), "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me."
Christian Science interprets the Scriptural lesson scientifically, showing that error must find something in its victim to prey upon and that innocence and purity comprise a sure defense against evil. Mary Baker Eddy not only discovered the reality of good, which involves God's allness and man's perfection as His image, but she disclosed the modes of evil, which claim to belie God's design of good and to act destructively. She gave evil the specific name of animal magnetism because she found evil to be animal in nature and magnetic in action; but at the same time she held persistently to the fact that evil is a lie, a negation, a supposition.
On page 583 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy defines "Dan (Jacob's son)," a Biblical symbol of evil, in these words: "Animal magnetism; so-called mortal mind controlling mortal mind; error, working out the designs of error; one belief preying upon another." In this definition one finds an explanation of evil's methods as well as the hint that one's true defense is in one's providing nothing for evil to prey upon.
