Editorial February 9, 1907 Issue

MIND NOT IN MATTER

ANNIE M. KNOTT

FOR many years there has been a wide difference of opinion in the medical profession, as to the value to mankind of experiments on the lower animals, and many protests against these experiments have been made by thoughtful people on humanitarian grounds. At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recently held in New York City, a paper was read in which certain of these experiments were described. The doctor who read this paper stated that he had placed a small creature "in a covered box, from the center of which a maze led to escape and food." After the animal had learned how to make its escape through this winding path, the experimenter removed the creature's eyes, but it still found its way. The other physical senses were then treated in a similar manner, yet the maimed thing found its way out of its prison; and from this it was inferred that certain animals, if not all, are possessed of a sixth sense.

It is hardly necessary to ask whether mortals have the right to gain knowledge at the cost of suffering to any creature, however humble; the question which most concerns us being whether all necessary knowledge may not be gained in an altogether different way. To this Christian Science unequivocally answers in the affirmative; it declares that all knowledge relative to Life and its infinite manifestations may be gained with scientific accuracy by the understanding of that Life,—the creative Mind. The case cited points unmistakably to a Mind not subject to the limitations of matter or materiality,—the Mind that guides every creature in the degree to which that creature responds to such guidance. Jesus said that not even a sparrow was beneath the Father's notice. This case also verifies the correctness of Mrs. Eddy's conclusions that life does not "exist in the thing formed," and leads us to ponder deeply her statement respecting the "governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form, which forms only reflect" (Science and Health, pp. 70, 71).

Here it may be asked what lesson there is for us as individuals in this teaching. It may be answered that the discovery of this all-wise, all-loving, all-governing Principle, which is never affected by finite sense or its discords but is ever ready to correct them, is the crowning discovery of the ages. It is indeed Immanuel—God with us. This discovery reveals the sense by which mortals are led to find God,—led out of the maze of materiality with its bondage and fear, into spiritual freedom with its health and harmony.

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