Article July 4, 1908 Issue

FEAR

ADA J. MILLER.

In an Eastern university a paper was recently presented in which fear was discussed and its advantages ably stated from a so-called practical standpoint. Fear, it was claimed, prevents accident, contagion, financial loss, crime, hence it is a social benefactor—one of the saviors of society; without fear, men would be reckless, disease would be unquarantined, swindlers would find easy victims, and the criminal instinct along every line would be liberated. From the psychological laboratory we have another view of fear. Ribot in his "Psychology of the Emotions" says that fear causes a more or less accentuated paralysis of the whole voluntary motor apparatus; that it influences the intestinal secretions, and if the impression is of excessive violence, it may cause death.

Here, set in marked contrast, we have two views of the same subject, both claiming to be scientific, from the standpoint of the schools, yet one presenting what purports good, the other evil; one freedom, the other bondage; one life, the other death. From another scientific source, Bain, we have the statement that knowledge is the great remedy against fear. One naturally asks, What knowledge? Knowledge of the facts in a given case might destroy fear, but in the many phases of activity that life presents, one cannot have knowledge of all the existing conditions. Then what knowledge would be our greatest safeguard? Material science would say knowledge of the world; knowledge of so-called natural law; knowledge of human nature.

Here Christian Science enters, and gives us the definite answer to the query. It tells us that our safeguard is in knowledge of God, "whom to know aright is Life eternal" (Science and Health, Pref. p. vii.); in knowledge of Him who said, "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee." From the contradictions of material science, Christian Science lifts thought into the clear atmosphere of spiritual discernment, where contradictory statements have no place, where the truth is definite, demonstrable. With thought filled with the realization of the allness of good, every possible fear is destroyed and we have our rightful heritage of freedom as the sons and daughters of God. Bain is correct in his statement that knowledge is our safeguard against fear, but this knowledge must be knowledge of the omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of God.

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