Editorial January 24, 1925 Issue

Spirituality versus intellectualism

Albert F. Gilmore

The theory has long been held that the quality which chiefly distinguishes mankind from the lower animals is the ability to reason. This power, it is claimed, is due to the possession of some faculty, some mental endowment, not shared by the lower orders of life; and this mental quality, called intellectuality, is attributed to the possession of a more highly developed organism termed the brain.

In a somewhat similar manner, mortals have been accustomed to differentiate between the mental attainments of persons. Some, it is believed, are endowed with much greater intellectual power than others, due to superior mental equipment; that is to say, to a larger and more efficient brain, as well as to circumstances of birth, education, and environment. As a result of this commonly accepted classification, it has been regarded that some are possessed of superior mental qualities, of a higher order of intelligence. While, to be sure, the great works of men which have carried civilization forward have been the result of unfolding intelligence, the facts regarding this unfoldment are now being brought to light through the discovery by Mrs. Eddy of the truth about God, Mind, and its infinite ideas, which constitute the universe and man.

Not all the wondrous wisdom imparted by Christ Jesus on that night when Nicodemus came to inquire of him has been commonly shared by men. The Master’s words, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” hint at profound truths upon which rests the whole philosophy of creation, even the distinction between the real and the counterfeit. Mortals, it is learned in Christian Science, being counterfeits of the real man, of themselves possess no qualities derived from Deity; their seeming existence is the result of belief in conscious being apart from God; and until mortals are instructed by divine Mind out of this falsity, their so-called intelligence is attributed to a mind other than the divine.

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