In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy points out a historical illustration of the effects of a reluctance to change thought and accept new findings. She writes, "When Columbus gave freer breath to the globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and starvation stared him in the face" (pp. 120, 121). And our Leader continues her inspired observation, "But sterner still would have been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the favorite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy."
This observation should arouse us all to recognize the necessity of destroying any reluctance to change our habits of thinking. The material senses are reluctant to give up their illusions of sensation in matter, for these are the means of self-expression by which they claim existence. Men are endowed with the faculty of reason, which, when rightly directed, enables them to distinguish good from evil and to choose their activity intelligently. In this choosing, however, latent habits of thought which make for reluctancies are not always evident.
One who reasons from the premise of God as Principle and of man as wholly spiritual delights in spiritual explorations and appreciates the beauty of Truth, the economy in spiritual abundance, and the ceaseless joy in spiritual-mindedness. The inclination to continue in sensuous philosophies denotes fear of forsaking the unreal, of disengaging thought from the unrewarding illusive suggestions of material pleasures and pains.
