Article December 21, 1912 Issue

Mr. J. B., if he continues much longer to write letters...

Frederick Dixon—Newcastle, England.

Evening Mail

Mr. J. B., if he continues much longer to write letters on Christian Science, will inevitably be convinced. The phrase "notion," with regard to the teachings of Mrs. Eddy, is, let me hasten to explain his own. It is, I think, admirably chosen and expressive, but it is not one which I, personally, should have selected if I had been he. "Notions" with regard to Christian Science is what I have always contended the critic was handicapped by. I have, therefore, patiently attempted to give him some knowledge of what Mrs. Eddy taught. Now that we are agreed on this, we shall perhaps get on a little quicker.

Now, first as to his notions about causation. He says the mistake I make is in attributing all effects instead of some, to mind; he wants to share causation between mind and matter. If he could show that mind and matter came into being simultaneously, such an argument might be conceivable, but even then he would be committed to a fallacy. The cause of this simultaneous effect would still remain to be discovered. The gentleman would, in short, simply have reached the standpoint of the Indian philosopher. The world was balanced on the howdah of an elephant; the elephant stood on a gigantic tortoise—and then?

If this critic will make a study of the teaching of the idealism of philosophy and natural science, from the time of Plato to the time of Lord Kelvin and Sir J. J. Thomson, he will discover that an enormous number of the greatest thinkers of the world have differed from him, and attributed all effects to mental causes. He will also, of course, discover that the whole school of materialism has insisted on the exact opposite. Christian Science is idealistic, but it is the spiritual idealism of Jesus of Nazareth as opposed to the material idealism of a Plato or a Berkeley, and so, absolutely distinct from teaching of that nature. The whole question consequently becomes one of demonstration. It is once more, as it were, Christ or Diana?

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