We sometimes think of progress in strictly materialistic terms, measuring it according to observable phenomena. We tend to judge it by effects rather than by causes. From this viewpoint, valuable possessions or prestigious positions, in and of themselves, would indicate progress.
Christian Science requires us to plunge beneath a superficial concept of progress, beneath a superficial concept of life itself. It asks us to consider these from a standpoint that takes in ultimate realities, not just day-to-day circumstances. This Science shows us that moral and spiritual progress is primary; that genuine forward movement, or advancement in its deepest sense, is moral and spiritual growth itself.
Advancement might simply involve getting things or achieving some worldly goal, if life and man were nothing more than what the senses report. But as Christ Jesus showed us, existence is immeasurably more. It transcends tragedy and sickness, beginnings and endings, the mortal concept of things.
