Editorial January 23, 1943 Issue

The Price of Progress

Paul Stark Seeley

Everyone knows there are often many steps to be taken between the point where one first discerns a worthy objective, and the final arrival at the point of its attainment. A youth may accept as his objective a career as a technical engineer, lawyer, a musician. But there must be a willingness, patiently and persistently, to take the intermediate steps that will, through education, bring him well fitted to his goal. Seeing the goal does not mean he has arrived there. Indeed he never will arrive if those indispensable human footsteps are not expectantly taken.

So it is with the advancement of the human race out of the wilderness of accumulated material ignorance to the goal of spiritual understanding and reality. The ideal must be envisioned and then there must be a willingness on the part of the idealist to take the intermediate steps leading thereto, however difficult some of them may be, or the goal will never be achieved.

Two outstanding qualities of Mary Baker Eddy were, first she saw the goal of human progress to be the spiritualization of the consciousness of men, whereby would come the practical demonstration of the kingdom of God on earth, wherein health, happiness, abundance, and peace are natural and perpetual. And secondly, she saw that to do this individuals and nations must be willing patiently to persist in taking the intermediate steps by the steady improvement of human government, law, and morals, as their understanding of God's universality becomes clearer and stronger. She discerningly writes: "The pious Polycarp said: 'I cannot turn at once from good to evil.' Neither do other mortals accomplish the change from error to truth at a single bound" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.77).

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