Article December 28, 1899 Issue

Symmetry

BY O. F. H.

How much a word sometimes means to us! Take, for instance, this word "Symmetry." What thought is brought to our mind? Is it not instinctively a thought of equality, roundness, fulness, harmonious proportions? We say a figure is absolutely symmetrical. We immediately think of a perfect figure, and a sense of satisfaction, of harmony, comes to us, and we know that nothing can be added to, or taken from this figure without marring its beauty, without ruining its "absolute" symmetry.

We are taught that "God is All-in-all" and that "the spiritual universe, including man, is a compound, yet individual, idea, reflecting the divine Substance of Spirit" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker G. Eddy, p. 464). Now taking all these thoughts into consideration, can we not gain a faint idea of the absolute harmony,—the symmetry of the real universe? Each idea is perfect, or the whole could not be perfect. It is a perfectly rounded, symmetrical figure. If we take from or add to any part of it (i.e., if we do so in our thought—for we cannot do this in reality), we have impaired the whole.

Is it not the attempt to "take from" or "add to" this, in our human life, that causes so much inharmony? Are not mortals, in many instances, trying to "take from" their brother, and "add to" their own store, thinking that by so doing they are gaining something for themselves? Do we not see, the world over, "the struggle for power, the scramble for pelf," subordination man's higher sense of justice and honesty, until he no longer thinks of the wrong done another, if his own interests (?) are served by a questionable transaction? What is the result? Some become millionaires—others paupers. The one class cries for bread, and the other is usually crying for happiness, and wondering why they are not happy, little dreaming it is because they have robbed themselves by wronging their brothers, in having spoiled the symmetry of the universe by taking more than was justly their own, and having failed to keep the command of the great Master, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

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