Editorial December 19, 1936 Issue

No Law of Heredity

Duncan Sinclair

There are people who believe themselves victims of what is called heredity. Some more or less remote ancestor has had a disease, perhaps, and because of this they appear to suffer from a similar malady; or a progenitor has been foolish and broken a moral law, and his sin is being visited upon them! Men of science, too, say they have investigated such cases and have discovered that laws exist whereby certain traits of character and tendencies to physical disease are handed down, perhaps through several generations. These laws they call laws of heredity.

It is plain that belief in such so-called laws must have a serious effect on those who entertain it. They reason that if they are bound by a law they can have little or no redress for their affliction. And they may bitterly resent the affliction, thereby binding themselves more firmly to it. Anger, too, may come in, and fear also, wrong conditions of thought which tend only to propagate disease, never to heal it. Besides, belief in laws of heredity said to induce disease, tends to produce a condition of hopelessness; and hopelessness is likewise a foe to health.

Now if one believes in laws of heredity, if he believes in the activity of such laws, undoubtedly he is liable to reap the consequences of his belief. What then must he do? In reply, let us see how Christian Science regards these so-called laws. It can be said at once that Christian Science reverses, utterly reverses, the claim that there are any such laws in real being. It declares the truth that God is All-in-all; that He is the sole creator of the universe, the universe of spiritual ideas, the Father-Mother of the entire creation. So that the real creation, being the idea or reflection of God, is continually under the government of God. And since God is infinite—All—no law exists but His law—spiritual law. There is therefore in reality no law of heredity to be believed in or feared.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Satisfying Our Thirst