Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-23
MRS EDDY'S DOCTRINE
Correspondent Who Perused Book Failed to Find Light.

denced Dy the pilgrimage uiaue u Hel { home. The newspaper reports of MT
 Kimball's lecture are somewhat dis
 appointing in conveying an adequate idea of Christian Science. l am de- pendent entirely for my knowledge Of
 Mrs Eddy's doctrine on her book,
 Science and Health.' Now, l freely acknowledge that in the following remarks am subject to correction, for l must confess that it was with much
 difficulty that waded through what seemed to me the indescribable chaos of the book, and my honest opinion
 as critic would be that it is a be-
 wildering tumble of unconnected truths, or what once heard a brother clergyman describe a certain lecture: "A conglomeration of undiluted
 bosh." Indeed, the venerable lady plainly realized the difficulty, for she refers to the marginal notes and these are some of the pellucid and enlight- ening notes: ''Odor and Catalepsy; Truth by Inversion; Divinity Cilildless; Reptilian Demand" With what meagre knowledge could glean from the book-perhaps my mental obnu-
 bilosity is at fault-I would not call the cult either scientific of Christian not in the ordinary acceptation of the terms.
 Divine science, so Mrs Eddy in forms us, rising above physical theo- ries, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts and replaces the oh- jects of material sense with splendid ideas" There is nothing new in this. It is the old pathological fallacy that denied the objective reality of things and is ancient as the days of Pyrrho. How even the divine science can eX- clude matter and thus resolve all things into thoughts is difficult to un-, derstand, save on the supposition that it is concerned with the spiritual alone. Such men as Tyndall, Huxley, Dar- win, while agnostics in spiritua!s, are the staunch defenders of the scientific and they insist that science is science only because it deals with matter and its laws in which they claim all truth resides. Mrs Eddy asserts that natural science is not scientific because it is deduced from the evidence of the physical senses" Physiology is her bete noir among the sciences, mot even good for horse," according to Mrs Eddy. Yet most peo- pie consider it very important science and it surely is one that must be deduced from the physical senses.
 Divine metaphysics" says Mrs Eddy, show me that all is mind, and mind is God" Yet with true fenin- inc inconsistence, pardon ladies,) she says a little further on: T am not a pantheist, for pantheism is the be- lief in the intelligence of matter" But if all is mind, and mind is God, then all is God: and if that is not pan theism I am astray as to the mean- ing of the word. Again says Mrs Eddy: Nothing that we can say about matter is true" And so elec- tricity, hydraulics, galvanism, meter only a sort of rag-bag of lies. Gra- cious me! What monumental liars our high school and college faculties are, driving these things into the minds of poor deluded youths-mnds which by the way, according to Mrs Eddy, are already God. On this theory if I stole one thousand dollars from Mrs Eddy could hardly be accused of theft. because whatever would be said about that thousand dollars would not be true and therefore it would not be true that I stole it. But says Mrs Eddy 'the theoretical mind is mat ter named brain.'
 Does Mrs Eddy believe this to be true? If so she contradicts the form- CT assertion that nothing we can say about matter is true" for in her own words it is at least true that the theoretical mind is matter" Gender" says Mrs Eddy, lis characteristic of mind, not matter" It has been cus- tomary to determine gender by cer- tain physiological marks not neces- sary to name; but now we must see the mind of an individual to determine the gender. Shall we wear trousers or petticoats, that's the question? We might possibly compromise on bloom- CTS and the bifurcated skirt. If the spirit of God" declares Mrs Eddy communed with mortals through cleo tricity, it would destroy divine ord. CT and the science of the Omnipotent mind" Just how this could happen, even in Mrs Eddy's theory, is not overwhelmingly evident. for she as- serts that electricity is not a vital A..f1 hssF he foI illusive consciousness. How an "illu- sive consciousness" could destroy the omnipotent mind is beyond my ken. | can readily understand that if the spirit of God got too familiar with mortals through electricity it would be decidedly dangerous for mortals. It would be an endless and perhaps a fruitless task to wade through the multifarious absurdities that she dig infies by the name of science.
 Nor is Mrs Eddy whit more feli- citious in her christianity. Of the dogma of christianity, the Trinity, she has a perverted notion for she asks: Who can conceive oi three persons as one person?" No sensible christian ever tried to. "In Christ" she asserts. there is a dual personality, the spiritual and the ma terial, the Christ and the Jesus" Waiying the fact that this is but a repetition of the old Nestorian her esy. I might ask Mrs Eddy how does 1t hitch with her assertion that nothing we can say of matter, is true" Jesus with her is the material in Christ and therefore itl must be true that Jesus isl material. Christ" she tells us