Editorial October 22, 1921 Issue

Separation

Frederick Dixon

SPEAKING absolutely, there is no such thing as separation. On page 465 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, and His reflection is man and the universe." This is the same as saying that the divine First Cause and its effect, man and the universe, is one and inseparable. Such a statement leaves no room for any exception. Even in the case of any subdivision which may take place, in the sense in which Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 511 of Science and Health, "This Mind forms ideas, its own images, subdivides and radiates their borrowed light, intelligence, and so explains the Scripture phrase, 'whose seed is in itself,' " there is no possibility of division. "These ideas range," Mrs. Eddy says again, on page 503 of Science and Health, "from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God." This, it will be seen, leaves no possibility of separation anywhere. The whole question of separation lies in the limitations of the human mind, with its ideals of good and evil.

The human mind, counterfeiting the spiritual at every point, and producing, at every point, a distortion, indulges in a perfect orgy of separation. The writer of the Jehovistic account of creation in the book of Genesis set the seal on this division in the symbol of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now this knowledge of good and evil is, from an absolute metaphysical standpoint, an impossibility. God, good, being infinite, there can be no such thing as evil. Evil is nothing but a supposititious belief in the absence of good, and therefore a mentality which believes in good and evil really never believes in good at all. The good it accepts is, at the best, a modified sense of evil. It is a sense of material good, and matter being the counterfeit of Spirit, this material good must necessarily be a counterfeit of spiritual good. A tree which produced the fruit of good and evil would be of the nature of a house divided against itself, and the eating of its fruit would naturally produce death. What this means Jesus made perfectly clear on the occasion when he healed the man possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb.

The people in their amazement cried out, "Is not this the son of David?" But this was so perturbing to the Pharisees that they at once made answer, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." It is certain that the Pharisees themselves were in the habit of condoning the efforts of the exorcists, and also that this was perfectly well known to the people. Jesus' reply, therefore, must have been utterly dumfounding to them. "Every kingdom," he said, "divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." Anybody reading this can see that Jesus repudiated the idea that evil could cast out evil. A mind believing in good and evil was, of course, a mind believing in death, a house divided against itself, since a sense of material good was utterly powerless to overcome its sense of material evil. Spiritual healing, he made it plain, was accomplished by an understanding that good was the only power, and that evil was a false belief. Healing through the Spirit of God was healing through the knowledge of the allness of God and the nothingness of evil, and naturally produced the realization of the coming of the kingdom of God, that is, of spiritual harmony.

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