Article July 22, 1911 Issue

THE POSITIVE MAN

LOUISE K. FLEMING, A.M.

"The good Lord made the positive integers, but man is responsible for all the rest of the numbers." So said Leopold Kronecker, the German mathematician, and an American writer who quotes from him remarks that this is about as accurate a statement of the truth about numbers as can be expressed in a single sentence. In very much the same simple way might be summed up the truth about man; for truly, God made the positive man, but mortals with their supposititious beliefs are responsible for all error. Even so was it summed up by the Preacher of the Old Testament; for after seeking through all the activities of life he concluded his search with the words, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."

The positive, in any connection, stands for that which is; the negative for that which is not. It is always difficult to make pupils understand the meaning of a negative quantity.

A positive quantity they can handle and look at; a negative quantity they can only suppose. It may be represented to them in various ways, by a loss, a debt, or a lack of some kind; but, however represented, it always involves a supposition; it has to them a sense of unreality. Now, strange as it may seem, most pupils in the Science of Life take just the opposite standpoint. Every one will agree that goodness, health, and life are positive qualities; and few will question that evil, disease, and death are negative in result. The former add to man's lot, and fill it full to overflowing; the latter would take from him all. Mrs. Eddy says, "Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth" (Science and Health, p. 186). And yet to human sense the negative seems the real; the positive, the vague and suppositional.

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