Mortal mind always presents its suggestions as reasonable. Sometimes it suggests that a physical diagnosis could bring mental relief if it disclosed a less serious difficulty than one which a sufferer has surmised. It argues that if this were the case, it would be easier to eliminate fear, and then it continues with the argument that the difficulty could still be healed through prayer.
A wise student of Christian Science will not fall into this trap. He will carefully evaluate any subtle argument that evil has to present, and he will break down that argument. He will ask himself whether, if he has genuine confidence in God's power to heal, he could depend upon human opinion to relieve his fear or whether he would allow himself to do so. Does he want to base his freedom from fear on human opinion? Such action may bring a false sense of freedom, but this will eventually have to be replaced with authentic freedom. Furthermore, if a physical diagnosis shows the patient's problem to be a less serious one than he feared, he still has a problem. It may be called by a different name, but the patient will still believe it has a name, together with the description and limitation which go with the problem.
The folly of submitting to a diagnosis is clearly shown by Mrs. Eddy's words on page 370 of the textbook, Science and Health: "A physical diagnosis of disease— since mortal mind must be the cause of disease—tends to induce disease." Does not this statement uncover the crafty part of aggressive mental suggestion? In its attempt to present itself as a good idea, suggestion would of course fail to mention that the very yielding to the temptation of hearing mortal mind's viewpoint invites confirmation of fears and makes it more difficult to erase them, and thus one's position is weakened. It would not specify that the more one looks into matter for an answer, the farther he looks away from God.
