Article January 8, 1921 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Marion LeRoy Burton, Stanley Frost, Henry Pratt Fairchild, George A. Gordon

The Christian Science Monitor

["Reaction or Reflection"—The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A., Nov. 16, 1920]

Reaction may be defined as response to a stimulus. In relation to humanity it means that if anything happens to a man, he reacts or responds to that happening by doing something else. Ebullitions of temper, jealousy, hate, and criticism are all reactions, while, in the physical realm, disease, especially so-called contagious disease, debility, and so forth, are also of the nature of reactions. The proof of this is that when a person is exposed to so-called contagion and takes no harm it is said that he did not react. The question may then be put why one person should react to disease and another should not. To this the medical profession, in the majority of cases, can give no satisfactory answer. Christian Science, however, gives the answer by showing that the difference is due to the different mental states involved. It shows that reaction is simply the response to fear and is present in proportion to the belief in the reality and power of the so-called material law of sin and death. Christian Science, however, does not enter the realm of mortal mind and try materially to medicate or explain fear and its reactions. Fear in its broadest sense is the belief that life is in matter, a belief which excludes the understanding of the government and protection of Principle, and no good is to be gained by investigating a negation or lack. All that needs to be known is that fear, and all evil, are negations of truth and so illusions. If one desires knowledge he does not investigate false beliefs but goes to the source of supply for the required knowledge. If one suffers from fear, he will gain nothing by merely investigating that fear as though it were derived from veritable source or cause, and the attempt to do so simply proves that he is still accepting its reality. He will gain all, however, by learning of that perfect Love which casts out fear. Thus the exposure, as illusion, and consequent destruction of error, results from the understanding of Truth.

In "Miscellaneous Writings," by Mary Baker Eddy, on page 60, we read, "Every material belief hints the existence of spiritual reality; and if mortals are instructed in spiritual things, it will be seen that material belief, in all its manifestations, reversed, will be found the type and representative of verities priceless, eternal, and just at hand." What, then, does reaction typify and represent when reversed? Reaction, we have seen, is response to a stimulus, but in reality there is only one stimulus, one power, God, Principle. The reaction of man to Principle is best defined by the term "reflection," therefore reflection is the real type and representative of Principle,—reaction the unreal type and representative of error or fear. Thus, in correcting human experience, a man, discerning the power and presence of Principle, reverses reaction and finds reflection.

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