Article September 13, 1947 Issue

"BUT ME NO BUTS!"

LAWRENCE EDWIN WOOD

Henry Fielding puts into the mouth of one of his characters the words, "But me no buts!" No doubt he had experienced many times the tendency of mankind to make a kindly statement and then immediately to qualify it with a "but." For instance, "Brown is a very fine fellow but ..." Why not leave Brown as a very fine character and not discount him at all? If we must say something about him, let it be, as far as honesty will permit, a description of his fine qualities, which point to man created in the image and likeness of God, Spirit, imagine; forth such qualities as courage, unselfed love, patience, and so forth.

Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 492), "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence." The basis of all right reasoning is, then, that God, Spirit, is All-in-all. In her "scientific statement of being" she says (ibid., p. 468) that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," and she concludes it with the declaration that man is spiritual, not material.

In order clearly to expose to mankind the illusory source of all "buts," Mrs. Eddy has called this so-called source mortal mind in contradistinction to God, whom she names immortal Mind. This mortal mind cannot reason rightly because it has neither substance, reality, nor intelligence, hence its retreat to "buts": "No, but." "Yes, but," "But yet," and any kind of "but" that will serve its purpose of minimizing good. Is it any wonder that wholly material thought fails to lead in any constructive accomplishment? Since it has no real basis for reasoning, mortal mind cannot understand the allness, goodness, and perfection of spiritual existence which Christian Science reveals, but sees only its own false creation, in which man is material, mortal, and imperfect.

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