REASON and intellect are the principal means by which the vast body of human learning has been built up, and their development and improvement are a very important function of education, especially at the universities. Without them, civilized society would lose a great part of its value and interest. The question arises, "How far are reason and intellect useful in gaining an understanding of Christian Science?"
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, speaks highly of intellect; but she also points out that more than human reason and intellectual perception are necessary to enable a human being to gain a demonstrable understanding of the truth of God and man. She indicates that she discovered Christian Science through reason, revelation, and demonstration: reason alone, being finite, could not have discovered the infinite healing Truth.
Under the marginal heading "Moral courage" in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes of a person who is seeking satisfaction through material means (pp. 327, 328): "Reason is the most active human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dormant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal." She also writes (ibid., p. 460): "Our system of Mind-healing rests on the apprehension of the nature and essence of all being,—on the divine Mind and Love's essential qualities. Its pharmacy is moral, and its medicine is intellectual and spiritual, though used for physical healing."
