Article September 11, 1915 Issue

Confidence in Truth

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

"The confidence inspired by Science," Mrs. Eddy writes, "lies in the fact that Truth is real and error unreal" (Science and Health, p. 368). Naturally in every case one's confidence is proportionate to his conviction of the truthfulness of things. Where this has been established and the rules for demonstration are seen to be universally available, the confidence of people is unshakeable; while on the other hand, what has been proved untrue commands confidence from no one except the unenlightened. In practical, every-day things one does not allow himself to be governed by what he knows to be unreliable, nor is one afraid of what he does not believe to be true.

Perhaps the simplest example of universal confidence in the reality of truth is furnished by the mathematical fact that one and one make two. No one dreams of venturing to doubt it, and in all the world's transactions it is relied upon absolutely. People never say of it that it is "too good to be true." They do not claim that the day for correcting mistakes or of changing the wrong for the right figure has passed. They know that if error occurs in their numerical reckoning, there is a fixed law or rule by which it can be set right. This confidence is inspired by the fact, proved again and again, that mathematical errors are unreal, that only the truth is real and demonstrable, hence practically applicable to the solution of their problems.

Knowing all this so well, and knowing too that error of any kind represents the unreal side of things, it is strange that mankind have so little practical faith in a Science of good whose rules can be relied upon to do for them in the more intimate things of consciousness what the science of numbers does for them in accounts. Is it less consistent with wisdom to believe that there is a divine law applicable to the correction of all human error, than it is to believe there is a law governing the relation of numbers which will prevent or remedy errors in one's computation? Is it too good to be believed by a Christian people, that the beneficent power which brought man and the universe into being is as scientifically available for the setting right of the wrongs in human consciousness, as is for instance the rule that one and one make two to set right what may be wrong in one's sense of number? It is at least to be regretted that so few Christian people are willing to test the efficacy of Christ's teachings by practical confidence in them. Unless the God we have been taught to serve has more power than the evils that we have been likewise, though inconsistently, taught to fear, it were no profit to serve Him; but when we acknowledge as truth the all-power of God, both honesty and self-interest demand that we make this truth the rule of our life.

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