Editorial August 25, 1917 Issue

Concepts

Annie M. Knott

In the prophecy of Isaiah we read this declaration: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." We thus have pointed out to us a great difference between what Mrs. Eddy calls "the human material concept," which she says is unreal, and "the divine concept or idea," which she says is spiritually real. To this she adds: "One is false, while the other is true. One is temporal, but the other is eternal" (Retrospection and Introspection, p.68). Outside of Christian Science we fail to find this disctinction made even by religious people. It is quite true that they make an entire separation between God and man, even between Christ Jesus and humanity; but the popular sense of man does not rise above the mortal material concept which has beginning and end and which is subject to sin, sickness, and death.

In turning again to the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, already quoted, we find that when the divine idea is recognized and takes its place in human consciousness, it is expressed through the Word, which accomplishes the divine purpose and prospers in the doing of it. The result of this on the human plane is set forth as follows: "Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." It is therefore surely well worth our while to reach out for the divine idea in all our activities, that it may wholly govern out thoughts and enable us to hold a purely spiritual concept of God, man, and the universe.

The difference between an idea itself and the human concept of it, has always been recognized by the world's greatest thinkers, even although they have not presented their views in a spiritual and practical way as did Mrs. Eddy in all her writings; therefore their statements along this line were of no avail in restoring harmony where sickness and suffering seemed to prevail, or indeed in overcoming any of the discords of mortal experience. Professor Fiske wisely and wittily gave his views on this subject when he declared that spiritual ideas as humanly presented only expressed as much of truth as the individual had perceived. Thus he remarked that in Paul's writings we have a "Paulate of truth," and that the modern writer might give us a Brownate of truth or a Smithate of truth.

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