Diagnosis

John B. Willis

It has been claimed that Christian Science practitioners are unfitted to heal the sick in view of their asserted inability to diagnose disease, not having made a study of symptomatology, and to this charge practitioners have made the best possible answer by continuing to do the thing of which they are said to be incapable. We are sometimes called upon, however, to meet the question in words as well as works, and hence it is worth our while to examine the grounds of the allegation.

Etymologically the term diagnosis means to know through, or thoroughly; hence the definition, "to inquire into, to examine," and disease has thus been studied for purposes of classification. It is manifest, however, that to concentrate our attention upon things and upon conditions which are abnormal is necessarily harmful, and that this is particularly true in the case of disease, since the more we study its forms and phenomena the stronger, more fixed becomes that false sense of its reality and inevitableness which multiplies our fear of it and yet which anticipates it, opens the door for its coming and gives it cruel and desolating power in human belief when it arrives. It is coming to be seen, moreover, that fear and expectancy are not only the handmaids and abettors of disease; they are not infrequently its source. In the realm of false mortal sense they have been known to transform a mild malady into a devastating contagion. Every thoughtful person must have observed how crowded are the columns of the daily press with evidences of the pitiful prevalence of morbid and inevitably degrading interest in the phenomena of sin and disease, despair and death. It sometimes seems well-nigh impossible for one to acquaint himself with the important news of the day and yet escape the pollution of the malodorous tide which flows on and on to satisfy the gruesome appetites of mortal sense, and to these startling conditions the material study, classification, description, and general discussion of disease directly contribute.

In the presence of these unquestionable disadvantages and dangers of that diagnosis which seeks to master while incidentally exhibiting and exploiting the abnormalities of materiality, we can better understand why it should have had no part or recognition in the healing work of Jesus and his disciples, and we can better appreciate the significance of those passages in which Mrs. Eddy has called our attention to these things (Science and Health, pp. 369, 370).

A true dia-gnosis, that genuine knowing-through to the correct explanation of abnormal conditions, that analysis and interpretation of human experience through spiritual perception which discriminates between the true and the false, the real and the seeming, the mental and the material, the eternal law of being and the false claims of mortal sense,—such a diagnosis has meaning and value, for it is scientific. It uncovers error for its destruction and finds a rational explanation of both the cause and cure of every disharmony and disease.

Material diagnosis is an inherent part of a material system. It is ever looking down and not up. It always starts with matter, and clings to it, for it knows nothing else. Ignoring mental causation, it expends itself in the microscopic analysis of the tissues and fluids of the body, hunts for bacteria instead of bad thinking, and seeks its explanation of even so-called mental troubles in materiality. Under the dictum of asserted physical laws, the matter physician uses many poisonous drugs, and if the diagnosis of disease in keeping with his basis of classification and treatment lessens the ill he may do, then it is well. The Christian metaphysician, however, knowing that in truth all human ills are but the varying manifestations of false sense, which would locate life, substance, and intelligence in matter (Science and Health), and that there is but one remedy for all; viz., the Christ-truth, is laid under no necessity of knowing after the manner of false mortal beliefs; his trust is in the presence and power of the living God.

Christian Science is awakening the world to the fallacy of the material process and point of view; the inadequacy of its best intentioned effort. It is demonstrating the significance of false mentality in the inception of disease, and that of divine Truth in its cure, and it has thus already effected a great and promising change in public thought, so that over and beyond its specific healing and redemptive work, it is conferring an unmeasured benefit upon every community in which its influence has been exerted.

John B. Willis.

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