Editorial June 21, 1969 Issue

Man—Not Automatic but Inspirational

William Milford Correll

In the face of advanced technological development and an ever more pervasive intrusion upon individuality, it is well to consider that man in Science is not a mechanism. He is not a brain-controlled organism operating on electrical impulse as is claimed by many material researchers. Man, in Science, is the expression of divine intelligence, the idea of infinite Spirit, the individual reflection of Truth and Love. He is aware of one controlling power, and that is the divine Mind. Anyone who understands this fact can both protect his own privacy and respect the individuality of others. He can demonstrate the law of God in human experience and stay free of the encroachments of materially-minded mortals.

With the spread of material knowledge it is becoming more and more evident that one must refer to the spiritual basis of being in order to maintain identity, to know why he exists, and to exercise God-given abilities. With the question of test-tube babies (do they have individuality?) and arbitrarily determined hereditary patterns (who determines what?), one is forced to look to a higher source than matter for his sense of causation. If according to human theories the brain thinks by electrical impulse, what is there to prevent technologists from altering the impulses and hence controlling thought? Researchers have already experimented with inserting electrodes in the brain to control an individual. This whole area is fraught with many dangers unless the individual is aware of the spiritual facts.

Mary Baker Eddy was keenly appreciative of the advances in natural science and the control it gave individuals over their environment. She was aware of the necessity of defining these natural forces accurately in order to bring them under intelligent control. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she says, "Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality which counterfeits the true essence of spirituality or truth,—the great difference being that electricity is not intelligent, while spiritual truth is Mind."^{Science and Health, p. 293;}

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