Editorial April 1, 1916 Issue

True Vision

John B. Willis

The invention of the cinematograph has given the sense of sight an educational significance which leads one to recall the Master's saying that "the light of the body is the eye." As never before in the history of the world, people are looking out, and in, upon life, and being shaped for good or ill thereby; and this emphasizes the peculiar pertinence of Jesus' further qualifying statement, that if one's eye "be single," his whole body shall be "full of light." The achievements of photography have but intensified the readiness with which instinctive impulse has ever responded to the call "Come and see," and the possibilities of good attending right vision spring at once into prominence.

While this call "Come and see" may often be but a seduction to the satisfaction of vulgar taste, at its best it is the appeal of Truth and Love to aspiring sense, and right response thereto means the gain of that wisdom to which the sage referred when he wrote, "With all thy getting get understanding." Consideration of the discriminating intelligence with which we look, and of the nature of the objects at which we look, may be said to be the paramount concern of Christian Science, which teaches with Christ Jesus that to see truly is to understand, and that to understand is to begin to live.

In commenting upon John Erskine's study of "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent," a critic has well said that "active intelligence is the virtue which gives whatever value they possess to all the other virtues that move us to action." All effective doing must be clear sighted. The light of the entire body of human consciousness, endeavor, and achievement, is the eye of spiritual understanding. Profitable seeing is never a mere matter of perception ; there must be receptivity, and that apperception which is the fruit of love for truth and a Christianly scientific order of thought. Things mean to us what we bring to their interpretation. The Master said much of those who, having eyes, see not; and escape from error demands very much more than a theoretical perception of Truth. There must be that opening of blind mentality which enables us both to discern the truth of being and to relate it in a healing way to individual experience. Spiritual verities are to be so apprehended that the declarations of material sense can be disproved, a consummation which is referred to by St. Paul when he writes to the Corinthians, "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." "The spiritual man's substantiality," writes Mrs. Eddy, "transcends mortal vision and is revealed only through divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 301). From the human standpoint spiritual vision is always analytical and discriminating; sense-testimony is made subservient to wisdom, enlightened understanding, and the gain and exercise of this wisdom marks our entry upon "life eternal." It is the realization that "now are we the sons of God," the fulfilment of the assurance, "In thy light shall we see light."

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