Article March 24, 1917 Issue

"Wars and rumors of wars"

GEORGE SHAW COOK

It is becoming more and more evident that we exist in a world of thought. Everything in our environment, all that we use, what we eat, what we wear, what we buy and sell, the houses in which we live, the churches in which we worship, exist because of thought, and from the Christian Science viewpoint, in the last analysis, as thought. Every action of the physical body, every act of the body politic, every commercial or industrial activity, originates in thought and is controlled by thought. Thought is the source and essence of all things.

Human activities and instrumentalities, being products of the human mind, partake of the nature of that mind. They reflect, therefore, the limitations and idiosyncrasies of the mind which is their cause or inducement. For this reason so-called material conditions are subject to variation, instability, reversal, disturbance, discord, upheaval, conflict. Writing more than forty years ago, Mrs. Eddy said: "This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace" (Science and Health, p. 96).

Since this world is a thought world, it is evident that mortals are to a great extent controlled by the state of thought which for the time being is predominant. The contagion of thought is such that one is likely at present to be controlled by "discord and dismay," unless his understanding of Principle is sufficient to govern him in peace. Today the mental atmosphere is surcharged with thoughts of war, for the world is gazing with horror upon the most appalling struggle that has ever been known to mankind. Millions of mortals are engaged day and night in the manufacture of engines of destruction, and other millions in their use, while human ingenuity and human resources are being taxed to the utmost in order that one group of nations may prove itself victorious over another group.

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