Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-12-06
SAYS SPIRITUAL
AlnAIE &c DEAF
ALUlNL 10 ALHL
MRS. EDDY SHOWS DIVINE LAW
ONLY USEFUL ONE
PROVES MATERIAL DATA IS PRO-
DUcEp BY MORTAL
Founder Of Church Makes Phrases of
Bible Heretofore unsolVabIe
Riddles to Theoiogians
Plain and Clear
nY ARrHuR oHANRERIAIN

BY ARTHUR CftAMnHfhaAtAAN
M UGH has been written and said as
VH to the fxity Of natural law;
-4A meaning by natural law the sup
posed law of the so-called physical uni
verse. Has any one ever defined such
a natural law? Is there any compre-
hensive statement of a great law which
rules all physical phenomenaY In place
of this, we find a multitude OF 80
called laws: indeed, 1t may be SAID
that the discovery Of now laws Is quite
as much the aim of the physicist as Is
his application of those already be-
lieved in.
Moreover, these laws are often in OPP
position to one another; no statement
can be made that Will be the fact IN all
cases; the law ceases to be law un-
less certain conditions are excluded.
The most that can be said is, that un-
der certain circumstances certain phe-
nonena may be expected: yet While
volumes have been written in support
of some special theory, supposed TO
represent the working of a special law
under given circumstances, the speclai
theory has been proved incorrect again
and again and the learned volumes
have become waste paper. The assert
ed law of material phenomena Is not
law; il is nothing but a mass of en-
pirical statements, all Of them con-
fessedly based upon fragmentary data
and subject to perpetual revision. There
is no unity in such a system; no great
fundamental principle which Will ex-
plain material phenomena, and no rule
or statement regarding such phenom-
ena by which they may be tested.
Mortal Mind Plays with Phantoms
Men are beginning to accept the con-
fention that it is impossible for the
human mind-''the feshly mind" as
st. Paul has it; mortal mind" as
Mrs. Eddy calls ito cognize ultimate
reality; that material phenomena are
indeed nothing but the human mind
made ms.--mest to itself according TO
laws Of its own making, as whimsical
and Elusive as the circumstances of
dream; in other words, the human
mind evolves from itself and for itself
the phenomena that 1t attempts to In
vestieate and is therefore merely play
ing with its own phantoms; bereft or
anv criterion and lost in the maze of
its own Authorizations. Yet, with all
this increasing sense of the unreliable
ity of all statements based upon mate
rial phenomena, there is a demand,
steadily becoming more insistent, for
stable criterion whereby all theories
may be tested. and that the test be
crucial Admittedly such criterion
IS not to be found in the material con-
seriousness: 1t must therefore be found
in the spiritual. A perfect criterion
must be based upon a perfect Principle
and perfection can be found nowhere
save in God, Spirit. In the last an
aIysis, the search for a perfect cri-
terion narrows-or expands-to the
question Of the existence, nature, and
revelation of God.
Riddle of Material Universe
Let It be assumed that we take the
word of God" in its general accepta-
ton, and we shall not deny that God,
being absolute perfection, must have
created all things perfect; yet with evil
and discord apparent all around US, we
hesitate to be logical and strive Vainly
to account for the unaccountable-Ver-
liable evil as the creation Of absolute
good. Let us see what modern phil
osophy can offer us as an answer to
this riddle-the riddle Of the material
universe. No less a thinker than John
Stuart Mill has declared against the
possibility of obtaining any cosmical
law from the evidence attainable
through the FIVE senses. AS quoted by
Tame. he says, "The uniformity in the
succession of events, otherwise called
the law of causation, must be received
not as a law of the universe, but of
that portion of it only which is within
the range of our means Of sure obser-
walton, with a reasonable degree of ex-
L6llbiOAl " duIditAtL CdSco- MIN RtAAA-
osophy is justly summed up by Taine
as teaching IAN abyss Of chance and an
abyss of ignorance" as the only pos
sible result attafnable from material
data.
Studied with Negative Outcome
Over against this philosophy Tame
places that of the German thinkers,
who seek their data not in the physical
but in the metaphysical, in abstract
considerations, the axioms OF thought,
wholly apart from the material and
unconditional thereby; what Tame
calls "indecomposable abstract facts"
OF their efforts ne says, They tried to
attain TO these ideas and to evolve by
pure reason the world as observation
shows 1t TO us. They have partly
failed; and their gigantic ediflce, fac
titious and fragile, hangs in ruins, re-
minding one OF those temporary scat
foldings which only serve to mark out
the plan Of a future building" On
the one hand then, we have a system
OF philosophy which declares with
Goethe's Faust, that all has been stu
died with negative outcome-"to
know, that nothing can be known"
while on the other hand we have a
system confessedly based on different
data and starting from other prem
Uses; lofty in Its conclusions, encour-
aging in its affirmations. but so des-
4itute of proof that it seems at best
but beautiful dream, a magnificent
possibility.
Useful as Well as Logical
IT is clear that any truly scientific