Article March 4, 1916 Issue

Error Has No Foundation

MORRIS W. LEE

We would undoubtedly be more alert to deny the evidence of personal sense, and would find it much easier to do so, if we appreciated that in so doing we were destroying the very foundation on which the belief of error builds. To the man or woman of constructive mentality the word foundation presents a very tangible and familiar idea. One must first have the foundation before any structure can be erected. That Jesus recognized its significance is shown by his several references to it, the best known illustration perhaps being the parable of the house built upon the sand. In his letter to the Corinthians Paul writes, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus."

"Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts," Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 269 of Science and Health, and we can easily follow the connection between the idea of foundation as a thing and of foundation as a thought. Here then is the point of beginning in the scrutiny to which we should properly subject each thought that comes to us: What is its foundation? Did it come from God, or is its basis personal sense? If from God, the foundation is sure; but if from mortal sense, that father of lies, it is unsafe to build upon. This is the interesting and instructive point to the one who is learning to watch his thoughts and not be imposed upon by falsities, namely, that if we do not accept the first false testimony of personal sense in any specific instance, it has nothing on which to build, hence it cannot develop in our consciousness.

Many of us have learned at the cost of bitter experience that the structure of error erected in belief upon the foundation of material sense, is the house built upon the sand, which cannot stand; but when we learn to reject this unreal basis at the outset, so that nothing can be built upon it, we are saved a great deal of needless suffering and disappointment. To meet the false assertion of material sense in its incipiency, its first effort to obtain a foothold or foundation in consciousness, is effectually to prevent the development of the error in whatever way it may try to enlarge itself. Sometimes the first claim of error is a belief of pain in the body; sometimes it is "news" in a letter, or a morsel of gossip, or the newly recited sorrow of a loved one. Whatever it may be, this first effort to get itself believed is the effort of error to lay a foundation. But if no permission is given to error, no foundation can be laid, no building can be put up; in other words, the effort of the belief of error is effectually frustrated.

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