Article December 1, 1917 Issue

The human mind is a procrastinator, for the reason that it...

The Christian Science Monitor

The human mind is a procrastinator, for the reason that it is incapable of comprehending the fact of ever present good. Since the war is now occupying a great proportion of the attention of men, they continually look forward to the finish of the war in order to realize their dreams or ideals of good, or for perhaps, the working out of some particular problem. Hence the constant use of the phrase "after the war" is attributable to this tendency toward, or habit of, procrastination.

The habit of anticipating good from a material standpoint, though it is certainly better than anticipating evil, is also unwise, not to say dangerous and detrimental to our progress. Because behind the conditions of material existence there is no Science or law to enable one to make accurate calculations, unless one can see, and, to some extent, demonstrate the metaphysical fact that Mind is God, and therefore that Mind is infinite in manifestation, we are continually working in the dark, and are constantly doomed to the disappointment of our fondest hopes. To rely on possible or probable material contingencies is to build our house upon the sand; in other words, upon the false foundation of human reason. These contingencies often work out contrary to our anticipation. Thus the goal we had counted upon, while it may, in itself, be perfectly legitimate, still eludes us, and this is so because we try to work from the standpoint of matter instead of from that of Spirit. The realization that, as Mrs. Eddy points out on page 547 of Science and Health, "the true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development," would change our outlook and place us in a position to receive the good we have sought hitherto unavailingly along material lines.

Now, working from the standpoint of Spirit does not mean in the least working spiritually to gain material ends. As a matter of fact, such a concept of work would end in failure, for such a method would be more material than the former frankly material way. It would really mean that the use of human will and not reliance on the divine Mind was being resorted to, that human will which in itself is the noumenon of material things; while working from the standpoint of Spirit means the realization that all good exists now and forever in the divine Mind, and that man, not as a corporeal being, but as a spiritual idea in this Mind, lives forever in infinite good. It means the realization of the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307): "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies," and that all we need or can ask for exists already in the divine Mind for man's use. Now, in the exact proporation that we realize this spiritual fact, these ideas become our own. In the same proportion they destroy the human sense of limitation. It means continually looking away from matter to Truth and Love, to Principle, where happiness, peace, and immortality are forever existent.

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