Article September 14, 1912 Issue

The write of the letter on Christian Science, signed...

Frederick Dixon—Croydon, England.

Croydon Times

The write of the letter on Christian Science, signed "Enquirer," was, perhaps, wise in assuming a nom de guerre. First, because he is guilty, if I may be permitted to say so, of talking nonsense about Christian Science; and second, because he farther on applies that nonsense to natural science. To take the first point, then, "Children and weak-minded people" are protected by law. The Christian Scientist recognizes the genuineness of the intention of the law, as well as the great evils it is aimed at preventing. To the utmost of his ability, therefore, he endeavors to keep the law, and children and weak-minded people are far safer under his care than anywhere else. This does not mean that Christian Scientists regard medical treatment as of any avail, and it is very rarely that a moment comes when there can be any question of the children in their charge receiving medical treatment. The children are usually kept well, or if not, get well long before any reasonable demand for medical treatment could be made by non-believers in Christian Science.

As for weak-minded people, there is nothing to show that they wish for Christian Science help, and it is quite against the rules governing Christian Science treatment to give help in any promiscuous way where it is not wished for. Only people who have not the faintest idea what Christian Science treatment means would imagine that anything so absurd could take place. When this treatment is given to weakminded people, it is because their guardians have found that all medical treatment has failed, and, with the consent of their medical advisers, have turned to Christian Science as a last resort. In a great number of such cases, Christian Science help has been sought and found efficacious.

Then, to come to the second point, Christian Scientists certainly do say that matter is unreal, but so, whether the writer of the letter knows it or not, do most natural scientists today. Ordinary natural science idealism teaches that matter is absolutely unreal, a subjective condition of mind, or the manifestation of energy. One of the greatest living natural scientists is Professor Ostwald of Berlin, and he has described matter as something we have constructed for ourselves. So completely is this recognized, that Mr. Balfour, speaking, not very long ago, at Cambridge, declared that modern natural science had not merely explained matter, it had explained it away. Because, however, the great natural science thinkers of today describe matter as unreal, they do not in the least mean that St. Paul's cathedral has not an appearance of reality to the human senses. When, however, it comes to dealing with a subjective condition of mind, obviously the way to approach the matter is, not to deal with an effect, but to deal with the cause. That is the teaching of Christian Science, which declares, quite logically, that matter, being an effect, being, as Professor Ostwald says, something we have constructed for ourselves, must be reached, to be really logical, through the force which has created it, that is, through mind. One of the greatest living natural scientists has recently described matter as "a supposititious vacuum in a hypothetical medium." I am afraid that "Enquirer" would regard that thinker with the contempt he manifestly is prepared to bestow on Christian Scientists. The world of science is not, however, so sure that the theory of the unreality of matter is the nonsense your contributor imagines.

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