There is nothing in this world for which mankind has a...

Weymouth (England) Telegram

There is nothing in this world for which mankind has a greater respect than matter, as matter is commonly conceived, and there is certainly nothing which less deserves its respect. The cardinal difference between Christian Science and every other philosophical system lies in this, as Mrs. Eddy puts it: "that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God" (Unity of Good, p. 9). No other thinker since the day of Jesus and his disciples has ever got anywhere near this; if one had, he would have met with the same opposition as has Christian Science. The ancients, it is true, represented matter as a privation, but that is quite another thing and leaves people as comfortably material as they were before. Again, the scientific idealists, from the time of Berkeley down at any rate, proclaimed the unreality of matter, but that did not prevent them from acting precisely as if it were real, so that there was a genuine excuse for Lord Byron's famous epigram:—

When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it,—'twas no matter what he said.

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September 26, 1914
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