In celebration and reflection, the Western World commemorated in recent years the two hundredth anniversaries of the French Revolution and the United States Constitution. These historic developments, which gave impetus and structure to democratic ideals on both sides of the Atlantic, helped to define the individual's right of self-government.
Less than one hundred years later, Mary Baker Eddy, through her discovery of the Science underlying the works of Christ Jesus, showed mankind how to take this right to its spiritual roots and, from the basis of God's dominion over the universe, to demonstrate man's eternal self-government under the government of God.
The strength and integrity of genuine self-government derive from our living in obedience to God's law. When this law is seen to be a real Science—the Science of Christ—something that can be demonstrated in individual lives, this understanding expands mankind's inalienable rights to include not only "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," as Thomas Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence of the United States, but also happiness itself, health, protection from harm, and freedom from fear.
