Article September 27, 1924 Issue

Fact versus Conjecture

MINNIE GARDNER

The demand that we adhere strictly to the truth which Christian Science teaches,—namely, that God and His spiritual creation, man and the universe, are the only facts of existence,—must be fulfilled, if we are to experience the harmony which Christian Science promises to those who demonstrate it. We know from experience, however, that our demonstration of harmony is only in proportion to our adherence to spiritual facts and the rejection of human conjecture.

Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 598), "One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity." Moments of divine consciousness come to all who are earnestly endeavoring to demonstrate the truth. They come often after some hard struggle with error, when, wearied and harassed with human doubts, fears, and vague conjectures, we at last turn away from matter to the spiritual facts of being. Then we find rest in God, divine Love, who is always at hand ready and willing to receive us, when, like the prodigal, we are willing to leave the husks and say with him, "I will arise and go to my father." These glimpses of heaven, which we have at times, give some faint idea of the wonderful joy which will be ours when every error of mortal belief is overcome. Conscious as we are at the present time, as mortals, of our distance from this exalted condition, yet we have glimpsed the heights and have seen the promised land, and we know that, to those who are faithful, the reward is sure.

Because absolute Truth alone is eternal, and since every thought must be brought into subjection to Christ, Truth, it follows that the demand for Truth must be carried into all our human affairs, and, therefore, that conjecture should find no place in our thinking. If we examine our thought in relation to our fellow-men, we shall probably be surprised to find to what an extent conjecture claims to exist therein. We are given to making conjectures about those around us, possibly the result of kindly interest in their circumstances or affairs, although perhaps sometimes as the outcome of doubt, fear, or anxiety. We "put two and two together," and deduce what seems to ourselves to be the only possible correct conclusion; but in nine cases out of ten it may be altogether incorrect. And such a result should not be surprising; for how can any true conclusion be drawn from anything but true knowledge or fact? Conjecture is the antipode of fact, as can be seen from a dictionary definition of the word "fact," as "the statement of a thing done; that which is; reality," and of the word "conjecture" as "surmise; supposition; guess; imperfect knowledge; opinion without proof."

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