Article January 31, 1948 Issue

IDENTITY: THE PROOF OF LIFE

MARGARET B. WARNER

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, appears this statement (pp. 339, 340): "Our various theories will never lose their imaginary power for good or evil, until we lose our faith in them and make life its own proof of harmony and God."

In pondering this passage, a student asked herself, "But how can we obtain this proof?" Almost immediately she was reminded of early high school days when, to establish the proof of the correctness of an answer to some problem in algebra, an infallible method had to be followed. If the right answer was substituted for the unknown quantity, conclusion would be reached which could be reduced to 1=1. This process establishes identity. Later she found that answers to long-division examples could be similarly proved.

"Why," she wondered, "should this result be called identity?" A dictionary helped to clarify this point by giving as one meaning of identity "the quality ... of being the same in substance ... ; oneness." She reflected that where 1 =1 this condition is certainly fulfilled.

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