Editorial October 11, 1913 Issue

Human Tendency Redeemed

John B. Willis

Students of human nature speedily discover that the conduct of most people is far more frequently determined by a habit or tendency than by a sense of duty or of right. This fact is easily explained. Tendencies call for no effort of assertion or investigation, but only for listless consent to their rule. They control without issuing commands, without compelling thought, or in any way disturbing our peace, and the stupor of indifference is the secret of their sovereignty. The rule of moral tendency is always the rule of torpidity, of a false sense of ease, and its victim is described in the Scripture as "dead in trespasses and in sins." Let a man be spiritually awakened, however, let him begin to inquire as to whether he is thus subject to inertia, and he is quite sure to be visited by that spirit of wholesome skepticism and analysis which opens the door to a new life. He will have entered the path that leads to the true self-government, namely, responsiveness to Truth.

Obeisance to custom and the dominion of habit always conduces to superficiality, to that substitution of formalism for faith which has proved the bane of Christian history. True progressive living, on the other hand, is not a drift but a climb, it always speaks for devotion to the ideal, for freedom, alterness, and spontaneity. It is always acquiring a broader horizon and a clearer vision, because it is growing, and growth means ascension as well as enlargement. Tendency may thus be redeemed, so that the bias and momentum of habit is no longer a hindrance but a help, and right choice and right doing become natural and instinctive; then the man "not only will be saved, but is saved" (Science and Health, p. 328).

The existence and possibilities of such a right tendency are the better understood when we come to apprehend in Christian Science that rebirth, resurrection, ascension, salvation, etc., are to be thought of, not as the events of a given time and place in human experience, but rather as processes, a going on, as Paul puts it, "unto perfection." Referring to this educational progress in the spiritual life, Mrs. Eddy speaks of the new birth as taking place "hourly" (Science and Health, p. 548). This renders it possible for us to be made glad by a conscious and continuous movement toward a definite spiritual goal, a long time before it is even in sight. Process always points to an end. It gives sure basis for forecast, or prophecy, so that conscious spiritual gain, though slow, furnishes legitimate ground for that rejoicing "in the Lord," regardless of passing circumstances and conditions, upon which St. Paul was ever insisting. When one has instituted a right tendency, he has made an investment on which he can estimate a reliable income, while the outcome of a wrong tendency is no less certainly predicable. Tendency always embraces the vastest issues, and thus renders the answer to the question God addressed to Adam, "Where art thou?" tremendously significant.

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