Article May 20, 1905 Issue

Reality and Unreality

M. G. KAINS.

When the writer first became interested in Christian Science, the use of the words reality and unreality puzzled him not a little. He had used these terms in the way popularly employed in the natural sciences, of which he had long been a student, and these sciences had educated him to assert the non-existence, or "unreality," of things beyond the cognizance of the physical senses, upon whose testimony the whole fabric of the natural sciences is founded. Sounds, tastes, odors, and everything seen or felt were very real to him and constituted his contracted universe; things spiritual were idle dreams. Needless to say, he had become an agnostic in the sense employed by Huxley; namely, one who does not know, but questions.

Therefore, the statements, "make it unreal," and, "realize" so and so, were, to say the least, disconcerting, for things which a natural science education and "common sense" declared to be real and to exist— how could they be made unreal" And things which these same two arbiters declared to be nonentities—how could they be brought into realization?

Fortunately, the reasoning employed in the natural sciences came to his aid. He was startled to discover the numerous things which to the physical senses are not at all real, but very unreal, in whose existence he believed unshakably; and also the array of things real to these senses but provably non-existent. For instance, gravitation, cohesion, adhesion, affinity, mass, weight, and scores of other instances were as real to him as if they had been seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled. On the other hand, mirages, echoes, the initial acid taste of saccharine (a material many score times sweeter than sugar), the pleasing smell of certain malodorous chemicals when diluted, and the many deceptions of touch, especially with respect to heat and cold, were all explained so that their unreality became apparent. This discovery declared the physically unknown cause to be reality and its observed phenomena to be the incidental but inseparable effects. From these observed effects the existence of the reality — cause — is argued. Gravitation is proved as perfectly by the gentle descent of a snowflake as by the terrific rush of a meteor. So of every other of these intangible "realities"; reason explains them all. Similarly, reason explains the mirages, echoes, and every one of the long list of "realistic illusions."

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