Article September 4, 1915 Issue

Habits of False Belief

HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul very truly says that "the Greeks seek after wisdom." We find today many evidences of this in their wonderful sculptures, and even more in the writings of their poets and philosophers; but from the standpoint of Christianity these indicate a reaching out after divinity rather than an assured sense of God's ever-presence. Indeed Paul tells us that "the world by wisdom knew not God," but this was because its concept of wisdom dealt almost wholly with the things of sense; and this is not so very different from the attitude of the average mortal at the present time. Christian Science, however, bids us turn away from shadows and look toward the spiritual, the substantial. In Science and Health (p. 261) we read, "Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight."

It is however deeply interesting to trace the mental steps of those who were seeking after wisdom at an earlier day, and the writings of Plato undoubtedly direct thought away from the passing shows of materiality. In his noted book "The Republic" this great Greek philosopher has an instructive dialogue known as "The Image of the Cave," with his brother Glaucon. He imagines human beings living in a cavern with a mouth open toward the light; that they have lived there since earliest childhood, so fettered that they cannot turn their heads and can see only before them. At a distance above and behind them is the light of a blazing fire, and between them and the fire there is a raised way, and a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have before them and over which they show their puppets.

Persons who are hidden by the low wall pass along the way, some talking and some silent, and many of them holding objects which appear above the wall, like various vessels and figures of men and animals which are made of wood, stone, and other materials. Hence those imprisoned in the cavern, as explained, see only their own shadows and the shadows of the objects which are borne along the way behind them and before the blazing fire. In talking to one another, Plato writes, they would speak of the passing shadows and of the shadows of one another as if they were objects really before them rather than shadows; and if the cave had an echo they would fancy that they heard the voices of the passing shadows instead of the voices of the people concealed behind the wall. To those fettered unfortunates the truth would be just nothing but the shadows and the echoes.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Habits of False Belief

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access