Editorial October 3, 1925 Issue

Overcoming Self-Love

Albert F. Gilmore

Many of the evils which befall mortal experience are due to a wrong concept of man, that is to say, to a false sense of self. One result of this erroneous concept is the cultivation of self-love, which ultimates in a greater or lesser degree of selfishness. So firm a hold does this error seem to have upon mortals that it comes to be the controlling motive of those who give it full sway.

Mrs. Eddy's characterization of this quality of thought on page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is emphatic: "Self-love is more opaque than a solid body." And she follows this epigrammatic sentence with an exhortation to destroy this enemy to spiritual progress: "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death." Strong words! Yet wholly justified in view of the situation! Here our Leader in her wisdom has joined three modes of mortal thought,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—all closely interrelated, and all to be scientifically handled and destroyed in order that spiritual freedom may be won.

How closely is self-love associated with self-will! Self-love arises out of the erroneous belief that mortal selfhood is the real man, and this mortal's believing himself to be a creator, possessed of extraordinary qualities, faculties, and powers. Thus he becomes infatuated with his own false concepts and holds himself in the highest estimate, that is, loves himself. Then it seems inevitable that self-will, the desire to have one's own way, to impose its own conditions regardless of the rights or claims of another—it seems inevitable that this condition should follow close upon the heels of self-love. In fact, self-love and self-will are inseparable.

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