Article August 12, 1911 Issue

On the appearance of Science and Health, critics, as is...

B. O. Flower

Twentieth Century Magazine

On the appearance of Science and Health, critics, as is the wont of materialistic scholars in the presence of metaphysical thought, declared the volume to be incomprehensible, incoherent, inconsistent, and absurd. This criticism is not wholly surprising, as it is the reception which has been given to practically all attempts to bring idealistic truth to the comprehension of minds accustomed to think in terms of materiality. It is much as if a traveler on the ocean, after inspecting a distant ship or headland, should hand his spyglass to a companion, who, taking the instrument, sees nothing clearly while the glass remains focused to meet the visual requirements of the owner. Christ Jesus, after trying to teach the Jews and finding that to them the truths so clear to him were unintelligible, declared that eyes had they, but they saw not; ears had they, but they understood not. And this fact will always be apparent when a teacher seeks to place the supreme emphasis on things spiritual.

But, though publishers were confident that the book could never pay for publication, and the critics scoffed at it, the author never for a moment doubted but what it would ultimately prove a success, because she believed most profoundly that it contained a message of health and life, in accordance with the divine laws of the universe. That her faith was not without foundation, is seen in the fact that no other serious work during the past century, devoted to the elucidation of religious concepts, has met with such phenomenal sales. Though in 1875 there were few persons who even cared to try to read it, in 1891 sixty-two thousand copies of this work, that has always sold at from three to five dollars a volume, had been called for; and by 1905 between three hundred and fifty and four hundred thousand copies had been sold. Moreover, the sales since then have steadily increased.

The success of Science and Health has been inexplicable to many persons. The following words of a friend well voice the feelings of a great multitude. "To me," said this gentleman, "one of the mysteries of our time is the success of Science and Health. If it had been a fascinating volume of fiction, or poetry abounding in fine imagery; or, on the other hand, if it had compromised with popular religious theories, so as not to have affronted those whose religious prejudices are strong, and if it had glossed over the sins of the flesh and catered to the easy-going materialistic conventionalism of our day, seeking to make peace with physical science, one might find a reason for the constantly increasing demand for the work. But it does none of these things, while being a metaphysical volume and in the nature of the case too abstract to be readily comprehended by the general reader."

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