INVENTION AND DISCOVERY

ARTHUR FREEMAN

Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 263): "There can be but one creator, who has created all. Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery of some distant idea of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mortal thought, as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the infinite."

It is noteworthy that Mrs. Eddy never implies that she is the inventor of Christian Science, but she does repeat again and again that she is the Discoverer of this divine Science—a distinction of utmost importance.

A dictionary points out that "one invents by forming combinations which are either entirely new, or which attain their end by means unknown before;" whereas "one discovers what existed before, but had remained unknown." Invention at once suggests a human sense of creation beginning with the premise that there exists a lack which requires something in the way of fulfillment. Discovery implies that human consciousness is awakening in a degree to the perfection and completeness of God's creation and to the sublime fact that He has already created all.

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