Article April 5, 1952 Issue

ADHERING TO PRINCIPLE

MAURICE W. HASTIE

Divine Principle is a term of supreme importance in Christian Science. The student of this Science learns that Principle, eternal Life, or Soul, is vital to his present experience and that obedience to it brings concrete blessings. "Principle" is defined in a dictionary as "a source or cause from which a thing proceeds; a power that acts continuously or uniformly; a permanent or fundamental cause that naturally or necessarily produces certain results."

In human experience anything that is considered stable and reliable is supported by a fixed rule. The principle of mathematics is used and depended upon constantly for accurate results in finances, physics, building, and almost every phase of human life. If the architect and the construction engineer did not have this accurate, irrefutable, unfailing principle to apply to their work, they could not expect certain and correct results from their plans. A tunnel may be started simultaneously on opposite sides of a river. Slowly it will take form; each side will be built separately, and yet the sides will meet precisely in the center. The certainty of the fundamental rules of mathematics, physics, and architecture, when correctly applied, makes this possible.

People have come to rely upon highly developed human postulates as dependable forces for controlling and sustaining their lives, activities, and environment. Education concerning their nature and the utilization of their powers has cemented in human thought the necessity of fixed rules and obedience to them as forming an essential part of one's experience. If we have come to rely so thoroughly upon human postulates for effectively promoting civilized living, how much more should be our adherence to divine Principle, which is Spirit, absolute, supreme, and infinite in essence, dominion, law, and government. The human principles which we commonly use hint divine Principle, which is invariable and infallible in its government of man and the universe. Though applied to different fields of work, they agree in the essential fundamental certainty, accuracy, and invariability. The reason there is a standard of accuracy in them is that they manifest certain qualities of the one infinite Principle.

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