Article November 22, 1919 Issue

It is probable that if a hundred persons were asked to...

The Christian Science Monitor

It is probable that if a hundred persons were asked to explain what they believe health to be, ninety-nine at least would agree that it is a state of the body from which disease is absent. Possibly, though it seems doubtful, the hundredth might pause, dimly conscious that floating in the background of his mind there was an impression that somehow health includes a mental as well as a physical condition. However this may be, there is no doubt that how to preserve health, meaning by that, how to keep the body free from disease, forms a large part of the individual's daily cares, and is at the moment occupying a larger and larger share of the considerations of paternal governments.

The discovery made in different countries, through drafting millions of men into armies, that the general percentage of health is very low, has shocked governments into the realization that it is essential to find a remedy; but their aspirations do not appear to be able to rise higher than housing and wages—all very necessary, but to the Christian Scientist mere matters of effect and not fundamental at all. That the whole of this subject is regarded generally from a fatally mistaken point of view is indicated by a phrase occurring in a leading article in a widely known daily paper. The writer was dealing with various arrangements looking toward controlling public health, and stated that "disease is a correlative of health," thus practically binding the whole human race down to the plane of matter, from which they could not hope to escape. To the Christian Scientist, educated as he is by his study of the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a statement of this kind seems little short of blasphemy, for he has learned to associate health with the knowledge of God through Christ Jesus, and to regard disease as a correlative of error, of a negation, having neither Principle nor substance, and certainly no relation to God, whom he regards as the source of health.

On page 120 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says: "Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health. The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to teatify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic." In other passages too numerous to quote or even to refer to, she insists not only that health and disease are opposite states of mind, having no relation to each other, but that the mere absence of disease is not necessarily a healthy state. The only healthy man is the one who, through spiritual desires and activities, has overcome the fears, passions, and evils inherent in the carnal mind, and, as a necessary consequence, finds his holy thoughts expressed in a healthy body; for health originally meant wholeness or holiness.

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