Article September 7, 1899 Issue

Voice of the Press

Until the discovery of Christian Science, neither the teachings of agnosticism on a tribal Jehovah, or an anthropomorphic (man-like) God, consoled the world, enabling man to "wipe all tears away," and overcome sorrow. Divine Science reiterates the teachings of Jesus. Listen to its clarion call, "There is no death." What! you say, no death? Can any true theory of life make such a statement, at utter variance to the whole course of human experience, past and present, and hope to substantiate it by any satisfactory argument? Yes. But in order to comprehend this argument, some preliminary statements must be made and established clearly in thought. In the first place, the testimony of the senses as to life and man must be impeached. Has the eye ever seen Life or the hand ever touched it? If the senses cannot cognize Life, can they give us reliable testimony as to what Life or man is? In order to understand the Life of man, we shall have to look beyond the range of these corporeal senses; and here is just where the agnostic makes his mistake. He accepts the science of astronomy, although it reverses everything the corporeal senses say. "With Mind, Sir," he sees the revolving earth moving from west to east; he sees the twinkling stars expand into mighty opaque orbs and blazing suns making their mightier circuits through interminable space. The blue dome lost in vastness where the ninety-five millions of miles that measure the earth's distance from our sun, becomes a simple gauge to measure inconceivably vaster distances.

Or again, has the human eye ever seen an atom? Yet the science of chemistry will weigh and measure it. Mind goes far, far beyond the telescope, far, far beyond the utmost power of the microscopic eye. That which is "unseen" (?) by corporeal sense is a factor in all scientific, right, and just conclusions far beyond "the seen." If the senses cannot cognize life, and if in scientific research one is continually getting beyond mere sense testimony, are we to measure man by this testimony, inadequate to resolve the mysteries of either the celestial mechanism of which we are a part, or the chemical compounds that are a part of us?

The Science of Man reveals him as not made up of material elements and organs. It shows sense testimony as to man to be as inadequate to a true understanding of man as to a true comprehension of the solar system. If man has an environment as body, he also has an environment as mind, else how can he rise in thought to the discovery and view of that which eye has not seen. He may attempt to confine himself strictly to the evidences of the senses, but thought is every moment carrying him beyond their range, in memory, hope, imagination, in history, art, scientific research, spiritual development, etc. The man who says, "It may all be true, but I don't know, and don't believe any one can know," would find himself in a very lamentable state of ignorance if he applied this test to all branches of knowledge as he does to theological questions.

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