Article November 12, 1966 Issue

Classifying Thought

EVELYN M. S. DUCKETT

Human classifications can be very misleading. They fasten on one common factor in a number of different people—like nationality or age or profession or income—and then assume that there will be other common factors too. Christian Science explains that the first step towards remedying this state of affairs is to classify thought instead of classifying material persons.

In Luke's Gospel, we are told of the ten lepers whom Christ Jesus healed. The account says, "And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan." ^{Luke 17:15,16;} To classify this man as a material person would be to label him either a Samaritan or a leper. But to classify thought would be to see him as a grateful individual, and thence to see the power of gratitude to ennoble human backgrounds and antecedents. Thoughts of wisdom, humility, love, or joy can transform human situations in the same way.

Scientific classification of thought does not, however, provide just another human category, a kind of spiritual intelligence quotient, with which to measure and tag people relentlessly according to the qualities of thought which they may have exhibited up to now. It indicates instead that to think of man as a spiritual idea made in God's likeness rather than as a material personality falling into any special human classification helps any individual to reflect in human experience whatever qualities any situation demands. whether these qualities have been conspicuous in previous behavior or not.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

True Identification