Perhaps the term which best describes the thinking which leads so many to accept Mrs. Eddy's teaching as both scientific and Christian is what the psychologists call "arrested mentation." The majority of people reason admirably up to a certain point, and then they suddenly come to a full stop. Having followed the right path to a considerable distance, they then deliberately refuse to follow it further. To speak more plainly, there are many people who reason correctly enough on some subjects, but on other subjects they manifest a credulity beyond belief. The Moslem, for instance, uses his reason against the claims of every religion but his own. The Christian Scientist argues like a trained logician against all alien cults, but when it is a question of his own faith he bids his reason to hush. For example, he observes, accurately enough, as we all do, that the mind frequently creates the conditions of the body. A man may at times think himself sick, or he may think himself into health. The will, too, is a factor to be reckoned with. The truth of the saying, "Where there's a will there's away," has more than once been demonstrated. In the same way, we all admit, since experience compels it, that the greater thoughts or sensations often crowd out of the mind the lesser ones. That is an axiom. If I am suffering from a toothache, the sudden appearance of a burglar in my room, pointing a revolver at me, will in all probability make me forget my toothache instantly. The cavity or the affected nerve which caused my pain is as real as ever, but for the time being I have a more intense sensation elsewhere in my system which renders me quite oblivious to the comparatively lesser pain. Within certain limits and in connection with certain maladies this principle—namely, the creating of a more powerful emotion in the mind than the one which is absorbing attention—could be, and is, utilized with therapeutic results. For people who worry, who imagine things, a complete diversion is usually all the medicine needed. So far, so well.

But the Christian Scientists who keep their eyes open to the evidences of the mind controlling the body, and know very well how to use these as arguments, shut their eyes completely to the equally convincing proofs of the power of the body over the mind. Hunger or insomnia, if prolonged, will put the mind out of commission. Destroy the optic nerve, and all the mentality in the world cannot make the eyes see. Stop the full flow of blood into the brain, and every one of our mental faculties—memory, perception, judgment, as well as the power of speech—becomes crippled, if not totally destroyed. Will any sensible person dispute these statements? The Christian Scientist, who sees how many things the mind can do, deliberately ignores the things it cannot do. Can mind, as Herbert Spencer asks, change a field sown in wheat into a cotton field? Can it make a horse into a cow? Can it transform an African into an Anglo-Saxon? Can it convert copper or brass into gold? Can we, by thinking, make the sun go around the earth? At one time people did think that the sun moved and that the earth stood still. Did thinking make it so?

It would be easier to prove that the mind would be helpless without the body than that the body would be helpless without the mind. Take away from man his erect posture or his hands, and not even the mentality of a Prometheus would prevent the decline and deterioration of the human race. What a wonderful instrument is the hand! It has no doubt contributed much towards the evolution of man. The thumb meeting each finger separately, or all four of them combined, enables one to take hold of things.

The ability to feel things with the hands, to turn them over, to take them apart, to bring them nearer to the eyes for a more minute examination, started the mind into action, just as the same hands, by putting food into the mouth, started the machinery of life into going. Deprive man of his hands, and he will slowly slip to the foot of the ladder, no matter how much mind he may have. On the other hand, endow an oyster with the human frame, and in time it will develop a mind and a civilization. An oyster with the mind of a Shakespeare would still be an oyster, while a Shakespeare with the body of an oyster would have no use for his "thousand souls." Why do not the converts of Mrs. Eddy see all sides of a question? Because they think so far and no farther.