Article February 20, 1904 Issue

Imagination vs. Illusion

LUCY HOLTZCLAW.

There are many familiar examples that emphasize Mrs. Eddy's statement in "No and Yes," page 12, that "Disease is more than imagination; it is a human error, a consistent part of what comprise the whole of mortal existence,—namely, material sensation and mental delusion."

The child imagines the stick he rides about the yard to have the qualities of a horse. The plan a man has in mind of a house, and the product of all inventive genius may be explained by what is called the power of imagination.

I sat in a car recently that was not moving; through the window at my left another train was moving backwards. My eyes said, We are moving forward, and as far as the evidence of the senses was concerned we were proceeding on our journey. By looking out of the window at my right, I saw that we had remained absolutely still. This was not imagination; it was illusion,—the car was there and I was sitting in it, a train of cars was outside and it was moving, only the material sense of eyesight presented an illusion that exactly reversed the facts and made me believe something was true which was not; and until some proof came that was higher than that of the eyesight, I could but believe the falsity. We do not imagine the sun to move across the heavens—we have built up no new concept of the sun; what the senses say about it, however, is just the reverse of the scientific fact.

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