Editorial July 11, 1942 Issue

Balanced Idealism

Peter V. Ross

Any ethical system will fall short of its fullest possibilities, when put into practice, if it does not take intelligent account of the suppositional forces of evil. More than one person has resolved to conduct his business, a department store for example, in accordance with the Golden Rule. He has read that this can be done. He is persuaded that he can do it. With this laudable purpose in view he starts out.

He proceeds to deal with people as though they were actuated by the same high motives which actuate him, when in fact many of them are not. Indeed some are strangers to the ordinary rules of integrity. They impose on him. They take advantage of his credulity and generosity. Sooner or later the project is unable to make ends meet.

Christian Science demands of its student that he recognize the weaknesses and unreliabilities of human nature and safeguard his enterprise against them. Hence he grapples with menaces to his success and snuffs them out by scientifically knowing that Principle alone governs men and women. He does not permit wrong propensities to run riot to the detriment of his affairs.

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