Editorial July 6, 1907 Issue

SELF-PRESERVATION

John B. Willis

The greater part of the organic functions of the body and of the productive forces of nature, as well as the bulk of all human planning and activity, point to race perpetuation as their end. All history may be said to be the story of the contributions which the nations have made to this enterprise, and biography but a commentary upon the different ideas which men have entertained respecting it.

The right to one's self is the basis of that liberty of self-preservation which is universally claimed and instinctively exercised, and this right is generally regarded as both natural and this inviolable. Nevertheless, it is true that every stage and degree of subjection and enslavement may be found among those who are prompt to assert and ready to defend this liberty. Their conduct reveals the fact that, though they are entirely right in their desire for freedom and their assertion of it, they are wholly wrong in the sense of self; and here as elsewhere the teaching of Christian Science is of vital import, since it begets and supports that true self-recognition which is not only an abiding inspiration, but which furnishes a stable ground of choice and determination for every exigency and experience of life.

In so far as selfhood is identified with the physical body, self-preservation becomes a matter of struggle for sustenance and for place, akin to that of the animal world, and one needs but to look out into life to be convinced that consideration for this sense of physical selfhood, for material pleasures and satisfactions, is the dominant motive of mankind. The definite relation which the sense of self has to individual conduct and racial advance is thus perceived, as well as the significance of the very great emphasis which Christian Science lays upon the realization and declaration of man's selfhood in terms not of human sense, but of divine revelation.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

SELF-PRESERVATION

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access