Article September 9, 1911 Issue

THE COUNTERFEIT VS. THE REAL

CHARLOTTE PAULSEN.

The word counterfeit is derived from two Latin terms, facere, "to make," and counter, meaning "against." Nothing can be made and so successfully accomplish all that is implied in the word "against" as that which is made to resemble something in all its externals while diametrically opposed to it in character. No object can be so worthless, no aim so destructive, as that which seems to bear the marks of identification which belong to the good, the true, and the beautiful, but which are in essence everything that may be classified as against those very ideas.

Take for instance our banking system, based on a numerical table of values which is fixed for all times and all places. Can one conceive of more stupendous error than that which would result if in but one instance the figure two represented any value other than the number two? The error if undetected would multiply, as it continued to touch added business relations, until the confusion and loss could scarcely be estimated. It is absolutely essential, then, that value and representation be identical. It is even more essential that we as individuals, sustaining relations beyond those of commerce or of social intercourse, relations touching the great issues of life in which time and place have no part, should endeavor to make one the real self and the apparent self. As we work on our problems, incorporating one experience, eliminating another, we learn that extreme care and unceasing vigilance must be exercised to detect the counterfeit, so that it may be rejected and consciousness left open to what is true.

It is surprising, often, to discover that mortal mind, which always seeks to deceive and to counterfeit, does not itself believe what it claims to be or to do, and so we must look back of its pretensions to find the nature of error before we can apply the understanding of Truth which destroys it. Mortal mind may argue that pity directed a certain act, but understanding soon reveals that selfishness was the motive power. Mortal mind may claim that fear for another prompted an impulse, but again understanding discloses that jealousy—fear for self—was at work. It is interesting to note, as one studies the meanings of words, that ideas originally intended to be conveyed by those words have been through common usage and false belief so perverted that even in belief the human consciousness has counterfeited the idea and purpose of the word. "Gossip," an old Anglo-Saxon word originally, came from godsib—"sib" expressing the thought of relation or alliance. A gossip then was "a relation by religious obligation;" or, as conversation, gossip was related to God, good. What has the counterfeit grown to mean? The dictionary reveals that "nervous" originally meant "strength," "vigor," "force." Does a so-called nervous person resemble in any degree these attributes?

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