Article September 12, 1931 Issue

Elimination of Error

LOULIE ATKINSON SNEAD

IT is evident to the student of Christian Science that elimination of error from thought will eliminate it from experience, and so will lead to the demonstration of harmony, which, of necessity, always results from the activity of perfect Principle. This being true, it is of paramount importance that the real nature and process of elimination be understood.

In Webster's International Dictionary the verb "eliminate" (from the Latin e out + limen threshold) is defined in part as follows: "1. To put out of doors; to thrust out; ... 2. To get rid of, as by expulsion; to throw out; expel; exclude." These definitions are useful. They make it plain that the word "eliminate" indicates no halfway measures, but a process that is completed only when the error which is to be removed from consciousness is completely outside — beyond the threshold of thought. No half-hearted rebuke to or denial of error will serve; no repression or hiding that leaves it merely out of sight. That which is beyond the threshold is completely expelled, is excluded from any place in consciousness, is wholly removed.

That such uncompromising removal of error from thought is a necessary process in the demonstration of good we realize, but the method by which such radical mental house cleaning may be accomplished does not always seem so clear. To the honest student, the reason for the seeming difficulty is not far to seek. The plea of difficulty and of mystification is always the plea of mortal mind speciously hiding its own self-indulgence, its inertia, its essential evil, behind many plausible excuses of human ignorance, helplessness, or so-called laws of nature. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in her writings has many times handled this error for us with uncompromising vigor, so that we have no excuse for not recognizing the serpent and drawing it out of its hiding place, that it may be seen for the deceitful lie that it is and exterminated.

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