Editorial September 7, 1929 Issue

Borrowed Intelligence

Violet Ker Seymer

Presumably everyone wishes to be intelligent and to express the harmony of intelligence at all times; yet it is only too apparent that this is not always the case with mankind. From the standpoint of Christian Science, intelligence and harmony go hand in hand. Sickness, sin, sorrow, any limited sense of good, is classified as unintelligent, never derived from God, and never imposed upon man in His likeness. In proportion as Christian Scientists learn to reflect the intelligence of divine Mind, they are liberated from sickness and other material beliefs of a self-destructive nature.

On page 511 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy states, "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.'" Borrowed! This is the very point which at first sight the intellectually proud mortal may not be capable of accepting. Yet the belief in a personal intelligence supposedly concentrated in each one's brain carries with it many dire consequences. Some children, for example, through no fault of their own, are classified from the start as mentally deficient. Other individuals are supposed to pay the penalty of too brilliant a brain, as the saying is. Human psychology and brainology place limitations on the achievements of children and adults; and by false consent all mortals place themselves more or less under the so-called law of mental deterioration through believing that the passing of years may automatically diminish their faculties.

Christian Science reverses these views through the revelation that man's intelligence is spiritual, is borrowed or reflected from the one immortal Mind, and that God's law of progress is in eternal operation for one and all. Our Leader says (ibid., p. 165) that "to measure intellectual capacity by the size of the brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to subjugate intelligence, to make mind mortal, and to place this so-called mind at the mercy of material organization and non-intelligent matter."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Notes from the Publishing House