Article May 4, 1918 Issue

World Fermentation

GEORGE SHAW COOK

Mrs. Eddy calls attention in Science and Health, especially on page 401, to the effect sometimes produced when the appearing of Truth to human consciousness seems to cause a mental and physical disturbance. She describes this experience as "chemicalization," but she points out that this condition may be regarded as favorable rather than as an alarming symptom. It is the human mind's resistance to Truth that causes chemicalization, and it is only to the human mind that chemicalization can appear to be real. Obviously there can be no chemicalization in changeless Principle, or divine Mind. Chemicalization, however, from the human point of view, seems to result in purification; therefore, to human sense, it has a beneficial effect, and in this way good may result from the fermentation which is going on in the world to-day.

In elucidating further this interesting subject, Mrs. Eddy says on page 540 of Science and Health: "In Isaiah we read: 'I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;' but the prophet referred to divine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its utmost, when bringing it to the surface and reducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin."

From the Christian, or even from the merely ethical viewpoint, war cannot be regarded as anything but a lesser of evils, and for the reason that it is even a lesser evil it cannot be truly said to exist in divine Principle, or God. Principle, which is infinite and divine, is not only perfect, but good. Mind cannot include within its infinite perfection and goodness any knowledge of evil, either lesser or greater, for the simple reason that Mind cannot be conscious of anything unlike itself. In Lamentations we read, "Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good."

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