Problems of Immanence Part 6

But it is time we turned from our examination of the principles of Christian Science to their application. So far as the wholesale declaration of the illusoriness of physical evil--the ravages and tortures of disease--is concerned, the implicit belief extended to the pretensions of this creed to master all such ills is proof, if proof were wanted, of the success which rewards those who act on the maxim, "_de l'audace, toujours de l'audace_!" Given the right kind and amount of faith, we are a.s.sured, Christian Science treatment will prove effective in a case of double pneumonia, or compound fracture, or malignant tumour, without the a.s.sistance of the physician--above all, without "drugs,"

which are p.r.o.nounced _taboo_ by Mrs. Eddy; "and that," to quote Mr.

Podmore again, "is a postulate which can never be contradicted by experience, for failure can always be {128} ascribed--as it is, in fact, ascribed by the Christian Scientist to-day--to want of faith or 'Science'

on the part of the sufferer." Nothing could be more entirely simple or unanswerable: if the patient improves or recovers, the credit goes to Christian Science; if he gets worse or dies, the unfortunate result is debited to his lack of faith. The only thing Christian Science fails to answer is, as we have already seen, the preliminary question, _viz._, what caused the disease--or at any rate the semblance, the malignant hallucination of disease--in the first instance. If G.o.d is all and all is G.o.d; if G.o.d is Mind and there is nothing but Mind; if all therefore is mind and all is good--whence in a good Mind comes even the hallucination of pain and evil? "The thoughts of the pract.i.tioner," says Mrs. Eddy, "should be imbued with a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence of G.o.d; . . . and hence, that whatever militates against health . . . is an unjust usurper of the throne of the Controller of all mankind." [5] But if G.o.d is omnipresent, His presence must be displayed in the disease; if He is omnipotent, how can there be a usurper on His throne? If He is All, how can there be aught beside Him? These are points on which we wait in vain for enlightenment from the Boston mysteriarch.

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We shall be told, however, that whatever flaws there may be in the theory of Christian Science, this cult could not possibly have obtained its vogue if it were all promise and no performance; and as a matter of fact, testimonies to the curative effect of the treatment abound, furnished by those who say they have been restored to health by these methods, and as convincing as such testimony can be. We use the latter phrase advisedly; it is impossible to read these doc.u.ments without being convinced of the entire good faith of the writers in relating what they themselves believe to be true; it is impossible not to be convinced by the perusal of their accounts that cures of some sort took place: the one thing of which it is possible to remain quite unconvinced is the fundamental contention of Christian Science, _viz._, that there was no disease to be cured.

Speaking quite generally, if one is going to be impressed by testimonials there is of course, no patent pill of respectable advertising power which cannot produce such by the wastepaper-basketful; and perfectly sincere and unsolicited testimonials, too. What these prove, however, is neither that the patients have been cured of the particular diseases they may name--and in the diagnosis of which they may very likely be mistaken--nor above all that it is the taking of a particular preparation to which they owe their cures; they prove the enormous power of suggestion and auto-suggestion, in {130} virtue of which many ailments yield to the patient's firm a.s.surance that by following a certain course he will get better. Everyone knows that a manner which inspires confidence, a happy blend of cheerfulness and suave authority, is of at least equal value to a physician as his skill and diplomas; and it is probably true, approximately at any rate, that a man can no more be cured of a serious illness unless he believes in his curability, than he can be hypnotised against his will. But between the recognition of such a fact, and the description of a cancer as an obstinate illusion, or a crushed limb as an "error of thought," there is just the difference which separates sanity from extravaganza.

In short, that which is of truth in Christian Science is not peculiar to it; while what is peculiar to its teaching, the denial of the reality of shattered legs, wasted lungs, diseased spines, etc., is not true. The power of mind over body, the possibility of healing certain diseases by suggestion, is not the discovery of Mrs. Eddy; the a.s.sumption on the other hand, that _all_ diseases are susceptible to such treatment is characteristic of the school of which she is the latest and best-known representative--only it is false. "All physicians of broad practice and keen observation realise that certain pains may be alleviated or cured, and that certain morbid conditions may be made to disappear, provided a change in the mental {131} state of the patient can be brought about. . . . It does not require special learning to build up a psychotherapeutic practice based upon the observation of such cases; and the Christian Science healers, narrowly educated and of narrow experience, have done just this thing, resting upon the theory that the mental influence of the healer is the effective curative agent. It is easy to see how a development of this theory would lead to the a.s.sumption that all kinds of diseases may be curable by mental influence emanating from a healer, this leading to the practice of the so-called 'absent-treatment,' with all its follies and dangers." [6] When it is added that the Christian Science healer is a professional person, and that the cost of "absent-treatment" may come to as much as ten dollars an hour, we need say no more about the "dangers" alluded to.[7] That the quasi-religious formulas of Christian Science may prove extremely effective in bringing about such a change in the mental state of certain patients as will cause pains {132} to be alleviated or cured, and morbid conditions to disappear, one need have no hesitation in believing; moreover, as the medical author just quoted acutely observes, it is quite possible that some patients would not be cured unless they were "allowed to believe that their cures are due to some mysterious or miraculous agency." But even such an admission does not mean that Christian Science does more than apply the principle of suggestion, increasing its efficacy by utilising the religious faculty of the patient; nor, above all, does it give countenance to the root-contention of the creed, _viz._, that pain and disease are unreal. Once more, if mind be the only reality, then pain, seeing that it can only be experienced by a mind, is real in exact proportion as it is intense.

It might seem unnecessary to add anything more to what has been said in refutation of the claims of Christian Science so far as physical healing is concerned; but one or two very simple considerations will complete our case without greatly detaining us.

In stating categorically and without qualification that "mortal ills are but errors of thought," Mrs. Eddy seems to have overlooked two cla.s.ses of patients to whom it would be somewhat difficult to apply this sweeping generalisation. We wonder, for instance, how this theory could be made to cover the large category of infantile ailments. How, we are {133} ent.i.tled to ask, would Christian Science deal with the teething-troubles which attend babyhood? Is it seriously suggested that a feverish, wailing child is merely the victim of an hallucination--and how would the Christian Scientist undertake to convince him of his illusion? On the face of it, such an enterprise does not look hopeful. But further, it so happens that human beings are not the only sufferers from pain and sickness; animals are subject to diseases, and often to the same diseases as men. We disclaim all intention of treating the subject otherwise than seriously--but if a man's rheumatism is an illusion, what causes the same affection in a dog or a chimpanzee? And if an embrocation may be used with good effects in the latter case, why may it not be used in the former? We need not press these questions; they will serve as they stand to show once more how this whole pretentious philosophy about the unreality, the imaginary nature, of pain breaks down as soon as we subject it to simple tests. So also with the Christian Science att.i.tude towards "drugs," the prescribing of which Mrs. Eddy places in the same category as the denial of G.o.d.[8] An obvious comment suggests itself: If drugs cannot cure, it follows that they cannot hurt; will some adherent to this teaching show his consistency in the faith by swallowing a small, but sufficient quant.i.ty {134} of oxalic acid? And so, finally, with Mrs.

Eddy's singularly futile question, "As power divine is in the healer, why should mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food?" [9]

Without unkindliness, one feels tempted to reply that this kind of language will begin to be convincing when Christian Scientists show their readiness and ability to sustain life on substances chemically certified to be without nutritive properties.

But it is not its denial of physical evil that makes this and allied movements a real menace; dissent as we may from the Christian Science theory of bodily illness, and deplore as we must the fatal results of which we read every now and again when a patient has been persuaded to subst.i.tute the Christian Science "healer" for the trained physician--these results concern, to put it rather bluntly, no one but the sufferer and his immediate friends. But when we remarked that the natural man desired to be made well rather than to be made good, we were not merely thinking of one side of Christian Science teaching; we were bearing in mind that the author of _Science and Health_ declares the illusoriness of pain only as part of the illusoriness of all evil, moral as well as physical. _Christian Science explicitly denies the reality of sin: and that denial follows with inexorable logic from its first principle--that {135} G.o.d is All, and All is Good_. And here rather than in the material domain lies the danger we have to face; this is the side of Mrs. Eddy's doctrine which, the moment it is attractively presented to, and grasped by, half-educated and unstable minds, will, we fear, exercise a fatal fascination over large numbers. For one person who will seriously persuade himself that there is no matter, or that his sore throat is imaginary, there will be a number to welcome the good tidings that what they had hitherto regarded as sin wears in reality no such sinister complexion--that, as Mrs. Eddy openly states, _what seems "vice"

is to be explained as "illusions of the physical senses_." That is precisely what every sinner would like to believe. "I have done that, says my memory. I cannot have done that, says my pride, and remains obdurate. In the end, my memory gives in." So wrote Nietzsche, keenly and cynically observant of his kind. As a matter of fact, men would give almost anything to be able to convince themselves that they "have not done that"--not necessarily from pride, but in order to be rid of shame, of remorse, of self-contempt; will not many of them only too eagerly accept this fatal anodyne when it is offered to them in the pretended name of religion?

We have but one comment to urge, one protest to make. It has taken long ages to develop and heighten man's sensitiveness to {136} the distinction between good and evil; we say with the most solemn emphasis that anything calculated to dull that sensitiveness, to wipe out that distinction, to drug the conscience, is nothing less than a crime of high treason against humanity. Better call evil an unfathomable mystery, so long as we also regard it as a dread reality, a foe we must conquer or be conquered by; but to solve the problem by denying its existence, to get over the fact of evil by declaring that all is good--that way not only madness but moral disaster lies. Let us at least understand what this doctrine is, which is being so energetically pressed upon us to-day; and if we see the direction in which that ill-digested pseudo-revelation is likely to lead those who consistently accept it, let us meet this insidious propaganda with equal energy and better arguments. Our first and simplest duty in dealing with the specious doctrine which a.s.serts that evil is "not-being"--a mere illusion which, like the idols spoken of by the Apostle, is "nothing in the world"--is to point out promptly and uncompromisingly that whatever such a reading of the facts may be, and from whatever quarter it may be offered, it is not Christian, but at the furthest remove from Christianity. Shall we be told that "the question is not whether these opinions are dangerous, but whether they are true?"

We reply that we are well aware that truth is the highest expediency; but we are not {137} acquainted with any other test of the truth of an opinion save this--whether and how it works. If a speculative theory, when carried into practice, should appear to make straight for pernicious results, in what intelligible sense of the word can it be "true"?

It is the immense merit of Christianity that it has spoken out with no uncertain voice upon this subject; it has never sought to minimise or explain away the fact of moral evil; on the contrary, it has consistently pointed to the true nature of sin, by connecting it vitally and causally with the sacrificial death of the Son of G.o.d: _tanta molis erat_ (if we may slightly vary the immortal line) _humanam solvere gentem_. A gospel which lightly dismisses this terrible reality, and seeks to hide its hideousness behind a rose-coloured mist of fine words,--such an emasculated gospel is not a message of life, but has the answer of death within itself. That in the past, in a doctrine such as that of man's total depravity, the fact of sin has been over-emphasised, may be readily granted; but in the present all the symptoms indicate that the peril we have to meet is its _under_-emphasis. Against this whole tendency we must resolutely re-a.s.sert the Christian standpoint and att.i.tude.

Christianity is that religion which affirms in unfaltering accents the reality of evil--but it sets over against it the greater Reality of atoning Love; it proclaims unsparingly the sinfulness and deadliness {138} of sin, but offers us the victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord.

"_O Timotheus, guard your trust, and eschew the irreverent empty phrases and contradictions of a mis-called 'Science,' professing which some have missed their true aim in regard to the faith._"

NOTE.

In order to afford an ill.u.s.tration of Christian Science as a thing in being, we reproduce without comment the following report of an inquest, as published in the _Tribune_, on January 9th, 1908:--

Remarkable questions were put by the coroner to witnesses at a Richmond (Surrey) inquest yesterday on Mary Elizabeth Dixon, 58, a Christian Scientist, who died of bronchitis.

Mrs. E. D., of St. John's Road, said that at the request of Mrs. Dixon she gave her Christian Science help--prayer which she had faith would be answered.

The Coroner (Dr. Michael Taylor): Was it?--She was in a state of collapse on Sat.u.r.day night, but revived much. When Mrs. Dixon had a cold previously it improved wonderfully under Christian Science.

Then Christian Science is effectual if not much is the matter, but is not in the case of a serious illness?--I don't think she wanted to get better.

Is that the way you look at it?--No, I don't. I know G.o.d is all-power and ever present.

But if G.o.d is all-powerful, as you say, and as we all know, why did you have no response?--I suppose it was my lack of trust in that all-power.

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It comes to this, that although He is all-powerful, unless the person praying for another has perfect faith the patient will not recover?--Nothing is impossible to G.o.d. The doctor was called in because it was the law.

Then it was too late. It was as much the law to have called him in when the woman was alive. What is the practice with regard to illness?--It is prayer.

If you had a broken leg, would you send for a doctor?--Yes, to set it. I have not sufficient understanding.

Continuing, witness said she did not believe in drugs, but she did in food at present, because her understanding was not sufficient, as she was only a student.

By a Juror: The reason Mrs. Dixon got worse was because of lack of understanding on witness's part.

The Coroner: When she got worse, why did you not send for a doctor?--I asked her if she wanted a doctor to tell me.

Yet she was getting worse owing to your lack of understanding?--I didn't look at it in that light.

B. H., who attended Mrs. Dixon, said she was a trained nurse with nine years' experience. Witness had, during the past two years, become a Christian Scientist nurse. She was not a pract.i.tioner.

The Coroner: Has a pract.i.tioner any special qualifications?--No, a pract.i.tioner is one who prays for another.

The Coroner: Would you give a patient a mustard poultice?--No.

But you would give her a hot-water bottle?--Yes.

Then where do you draw the line? You don't believe in material aid?--No, I believe the other is better.

Do you believe in a judicious continuation of both?--No.

Did you give her beef tea?--Yes, as a nourishment.

But, nurse, you ought to know what every medical man knows, that beef tea is a stimulant. Do you believe in stimulants?--Not at all.

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Then why did you give her beef tea?--(After a pause) It was simpler to get.

But it is contrary to your principles. Would you give _sal volatile_?--No.

Witness explained that she called in no other help because she believed prayer was the most effectual.

Why didn't you call in a doctor?--I think the patient should judge for herself.

Even though her brain is clouded and she is dying?--Yes.

On another point the Coroner said: Did our Saviour use food and stimulants?--He gave wine.

Why don't you give wine?--He did not give it in illness, but at a marriage feast.

You want us to believe He gave wine to people who could do without and withheld it from those who wanted it.

Asked a question as to calling in a doctor for surgery purposes, witness said he would only be called in for setting bones and not for an operation.