Editorial June 14, 1924 Issue

Health

Duncan Sinclair

If the world were asked what health is, the answers would vary; but as a general rule men would maintain that health is a condition dependent upon an harmonious body, a body acting normally without any manifestation of disease. Underlying the reply is the thought that the body is the determining factor. It is believed that it reports its condition to the consciousness of the person; and one is healthy or otherwise according as to what physical sense may testify of the bodily condition. It is no doubt true that nowadays men are recognizing the action of body on mind, or mind on body,—to use their own terms; but in the thought of the majority, still, health is harmonious bodily action,—nothing more.

On the hypothesis that matter determines health,—that is, the matter making up the body,—the ordinary schools of healing have built up their systems. Their endeavor is, by the action of drugs or surgery, to get at the part or parts diseased and either cure or remove them; or so to arrange conditions as to food, air, rest, et cetera, as to allow what is called nature to make the necessary adjustment. Besides these, in later days the action of the so-called human mind has been introduced to induce, by suggestion of some kind or other, the desired effect of health. Everybody knows how empirical, how experimental, these methods are. Every honest practitioner of them readily admits the fact, acknowledging the difficulties attendant on even the diagnosis of the conditions which it is believed cause the disease, which conditions it is the effort to eliminate.

Now Christian Science does not look on the question of so-called disease in the way just alluded to at all; it bases its reasoning on an hypothesis altogether different from that upon which ordinary material medical practice is founded. Christian Science maintains that the question of health must be viewed from the point of view of spiritual reality. What exactly does this mean? It signifies that we must begin our investigation into the question of health by obtaining an understanding of God, as real Being. This is where Mrs. Eddy's discovery begins. Holding to the truth that God is Spirit and infinite, she realized that so-called matter is unreal,—an illusory mental concept. Furthermore, holding to the truth that God is infinite good, she realized that evil is unreal, that evil in whatsoever seeming form, be it of sickness, sin, sorrow, pain, or death, has no real existence. Mrs. Eddy thus saw that disease has no reality; that it is a false belief entertained by an hypothetical mentality. Ever before her thought there remained the great fact that God exists as the one and only Mind, in which all reality exists, forever harmonious. Hence, she scientifically pronounced health to be a condition of Mind; something altogether permanent, and never subject to impairment or decay. Thus, on page 120 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" our Leader writes of health, "Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Health

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access