ART. VIII.-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AGAINST ITSELF.

It is not within the scope of this article to deal particularly with the merits of the professed cures of Christian Science treatment. No doubt many persons have been benefited by such treatment. Mental therapeutics is no new art. All wellinformed persons know that for ages mental healing has been practiced under different names, and by persons of varying types of character and different degrees of intelligence and honesty. A great many different forms of diseases and physical ailments have been relieved or cured by mental processes. These cures have been effected both with and without faith on the part of the subject of the healing; that is, so far as faith in the divine power of the healer is concerned.

We will lay down a few general principles which may, we think, be relied upon for the guidance of those who are inquiring into the phenomena of all kinds of mental healing, whether it be under the name of hypnotism, charms, faith healing, or Christian Science:

1. Character and honesty are not essential in the healer to the performance of these so-called cures.

2. Faith in Christ or in a supreme Being is not essential in the afflicted as a condition of this healing.

3. Faith in one's own will-power, or else in the power and the methods of the healer, is essential to success in mental healing.

4. Certain deranged conditions of the human organism are the result of abnormal conditions of mind or heart, and due solely to the influence of mind over matter.

5. The human organism possesses certain recuperative powers, by which, under normal conditions of mind, it may regulate and restore itself to a correspondingly normal condition.

6. Whatever, therefore, may or does restore the mind to its normal condition of action and the body to its normal conditions of environment may become the remedy for such diseases as are the result of these abnormal conditions.

7. Any disease, therefore, that is purely the result of some abnormal mental or moral condition may be cured by restor

ing the mind to its healthy and normal condition, and that without the use of medicines, and solely through the inherent recuperative powers of the physical system.

8. These cures are limited to those cases which are purely functional in their character, as distinct from those which are known as organic diseases.

Let it be observed that many functional derangements of the bodily organs are the result of derangement in the functions of other organs which may themselves have become deranged through some abnormal mental condition. For instance, the digestive organs may become seriously impaired by such mental emotions as fright, anger, indignation, grief, hatred, jealousy, or other abnormal mental states. By sympathy functional derangement of the heart or other organs may follow until the patient fancies he has organic disease of almost every organ in the body, while possibly he may have no organic disease at all. Thus even a deranged imagination may add to the horrors of his other diseases. Now let Christian Science step in, or any other system of mental healing that can restore the mind to its normal condition by persuading the patient or victim of these horrors that there is nothing the matter with him but imaginary ills, and very soon he experiences a remarkable change in his feelings, and declares himself healed. And so he is. Healed of what? Of organic disease of the heart, stomach, liver, and lungs? Not at all, for he has had none of these, but cured of the abnormal conditions of mind which led to all these physical and mental horrors. Has Christian Science then done anything in the way of healing? Certainly it has. Let no one think to down this fanaticism by merely ridiculing the idea of Christian Science ever having done anything in the way of healing. It has done something, but nothing but what has long since been done without either faith, Christianity, or the knowledge of science itself. It has done nothing but what still can be done without the aid of Christian Science at all. It may, therefore, be laid down as a principle in mental healing that any condition which is wholly imaginary, or simply the result of an abnormal and unhealthful condition of mind, may possibly be remedied by any means that will restore the mind to

its normal and healthful condition, thereby leaving the system to the free action of the recuperative forces of nature.

Without entering farther into the subject of mind healing, we shall pass to the discussion of the merits of the system itself. At the outset we may pause to inquire, What are the fundamental principles of Christian Science? Its fundamental principles may be summarized as follows: 1. The unreality of matter. 2. The nonexistence of evil. 3. The unreliability of consciousness. On these three principles hang all the “law and the prophets" of Christian Science. Intimately associated with these fundamental principles, though not necessarily deducible from them, nor logically consistent with them, is the existence and, in some sense, the reality of mind. We say "not logically consistent," because, as we shall show later, to predicate the unreliability of consciousness is to repudiate the evidence of the existence of all mind. But Christian Science stops for no inconsistencies or logical contradictions in building its theories. In fact (as the purpose of this article is to show), it is a system, not only of logical absurdities, but of positive contradictions in all its fundamental propositions and principles. While many writers have pointed out absurdities in the theories, not one, so far as our observation has gone, has seemed to grasp the fundamental contradictoriness of the whole system, that is, that Christian Science is not only unscientific and unchristian in its methods and teachings, but is also antiscientific and antichristian in every particular. Or, in other words, so far from its being what it claims to be-Christian science-it is in its fundamental principles utterly destructive of all science and likewise of all Christianity.

That is, according to the first principles on which it is built there can be no science and no Christianity. In seeking to lay its foundations it strikes out by one fell sweep the foundations of every known science in the universe. So utterly annihilating to all science are these principles that they leave no foundation for even Christain Science itself to stand on. Yea, even the foundation principles themselves are logical absurdities and self-contradictions. If the reader will follow us closely, every one capable of appreciating the force of a

scientific and logical argument will see that Christian Science seals its own doom in the enunciation of its fundamental principles.

First, however, we would call attention to the fact that Christian Science is unscientific in its methods. It is neither inductive, deductive, nor intuitional. It strikes out at the beginning the whole realm of phenomena with which these methods have to deal. And more, it ridicules all such methods of scientific investigation as childish and fanciful. Facts, figures, and methods are alike relegated to the field of fancy or error. But, strange indeed, neither Mrs. Eddy nor any of her followers have ever discovered that in doing this they have left no foundation for their so-called science to rest on, nor any tools or material to build with. How absurd to attempt to build a science without any scientific method to work with or any material with which to build! Yet such is the sad predicament in which Mrs. Eddy places herself and her disciples when she announces her first principle, the unreality of matter. "The five senses are five personal lies." Matter " is nothing but a mortal illusion, wholly inadequate to affect man through its supposed existence." But, if matter is nothing but "a mortal illusion," then all the supposed facts and phenomena which science has to deal with are likewise "illusions;" and so all inductions and deductions regarding them are illusions also. Christian Science has no scientific method of investigation, recognizes no law governing the phenomena of mind or the "illusions" of the senses, and yet proceeds with the utmost self-confidence in the enunciation of its dogmas, without recognizing either reason, science, or law in framing them. In other words, it repudiates all methods and means of acquiring knowledge, declares all consciousness as unreliable, and yet, in the face of this, asserts certain things to be facts, and reproaches us for not accepting them as such, when, according to their own principles, they have no means of knowing anything whatever with certainty. Could anything be more unscientific than this? Yet this is the only method of Christian Science.

But we go still farther to point out that Christian Science is not only unscientific in its methods but it is absolutely destruc

tive of all science, even of Christian Science itself.

Accord

ing to the first principles of Christian Science there can be no science, not even Christian Science. Every known science goes down before its sweeping dogmas. Let us look again at its fundamental principle as contained in Mrs. Eddy's assertions, "The five senses are five personal lies," and matter is but "a mortal illusion." This assertion strikes out at once from the field of human learning every branch of physical science. Natural philosophy goes out at the bottom. If "there is no matter," then of course all the "properties of matter" are insane illusions of the fancy. Extension, weight, inertia, mobility, porosity, expansibility, tenacity, brittleness, and malleability are but childish fancies or idle dreams. Attraction, electricity, magnetism, light, sound, and heat are but different forms of error, nothing more. Our public schools are gigantic swindles, aiding in the propagation of these popular illusions and childish errors. Chemistry also goes down with natural philosophy. All the boasted experiments of chemistry are but forms of "mortal error," since, there being no matter, there can be no chemical properties of that which is only mind. Geometry is an idle dream, because there are no dimensions nor forms to that which is not. Geology is no longer entitled to the name of a science. We vainly thought it revealed to us the story of the rocks. But this is all an idle fancy, since "rock" is but a name for hardened matter, which, according to Christian Science, has no existence save in human fancy. There are no rocks, no mountains, no seas, no fossils, no bodies to be fossilized in the bosom of mother earth; yea, and no mother earth with any bosom to enfold a helpless offspring in. Astronomy, that splendid dream of the stars, is also but a dream, an illusion of the senses. There is no matter; so those wheeling worlds and sparkling orbs are but fancied sparks flitting before the eye of a deluded fancy. They are but mental fireflies that flit across the empty spaces of the human brain. Pardon us-there is no brain, since brain is a form of matter; we should rather have said, the human fancy. Anatomy is no longer a science, since bones are said to be chiefly lime, flesh and blood but chemical compounds, and all that implies matter. Now, since matter does not exist, it is the height