Article August 9, 1919 Issue

It is seldom indeed that a criticism of the Christian Science...

Peter V. Ross

Palo Alto (Calif.) Times

It is seldom indeed that a criticism of the Christian Science doctrine of the unreality of matter so fair and discerning as yours appears in the public press. No doubt the doctrine is difficult to accept, and still more difficult to demonstrate, but the difficulties of a proposition do not preclude its acceptance if it appeals to our reason, nor discourage us from attempting to demonstrate it if the demonstration of the truth of the proposition holds a promise that makes the effort worth while.

When we concede, as we do, that the creator is Spirit, logic immediately insists that creation must be spiritual. If human sense, on the contrary, sees a material universe, we have a right to suspect that human sense entertains a wrong concept of things. This mistaken concept is, according to Christian Science, all there is to matter; and it is the purpose of Christian Science to change and correct that concept in order, not that things will be destroyed, but discerned in their true light. To change from a material to a spiritual concept of the universe does not destroy the universe or anything in it, but it reveals the universe and all contained therein as real, permanent, and beautiful. To exchange the physical idea of man for the spiritual does not put man out of existence, but brings into view his real selfhood as perfect and immortal. In all this transformation, or process of correction, nothing is destroyed except the erroneous concept of things; for, as Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 70), "the divine Mind maintains all identifies, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal."

Physicists take the position, so it is said, that what seems to be matter is not matter at all, but energy. Christian Scientists declare that matter is simply the lower stratum of mortal mind; and that since there is, in reality, only one Mind,—that is, the divine Mind,—matter has no actual existence, however formidable it may appear to human sense looking "through a glass, darkly." Now if it is admitted that the human body for example is mental rather than material (and the fact that the body appears to possess intelligence argues for that admission), it becomes at once apparent that a change in thought will effect a change in the body, and this even to the extent of what we call a physical or structural change in some organ or member.

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