Article April 13, 1918 Issue

A writer's comments in your columns on the teachings of...

Judge Clifford P. Smith—Toronto, Ontario

The Canada Lancet

A writer's comments in your columns on the teachings of Christian Science remind me of the following definition in the Encyclopædia Britannica: "Materialism in its modern sense is the view that all we know is body, of which mind is an attribute or function." Such a view is, of course, at the utmost point of opposition to the purely spiritual view of reality taught by Christian Science. But even the crassest materialist ought to be able to see that Christian Science no more ignores disease than mathematics ignores mistakes in the use of figures. As for the nature and existence of what is called matter, the Rt. Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, an eminent natural scientist, has declared that the evidence of the senses is not a foundation of belief, and Prof. John Fiske, another eminent natural scientist, has declared that matter has no existence apart from mind. The following quotation from Professor Fiske furnishes a sharp contrast to our critic's comments on Christian Science: "All the qualities of matter are what the mind makes them, and have no existence as such apart from the mind."

It is to be observed that some medical doctors are outgrowing the belief that mind is subordinate to matter. For instance, Leonard Keene Hirshberg, M.D., F.R.C.S., the well-known medical writer, has said: "There is no longer any doubt in any experimental psychologist's thoughts that the brain and nerves have no more to do with thinking, with the mind, than have your feet. Physicians will begin to be taught this, and in turn to teach it to the public about thirty or fifty years hence."

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