All psychologists will readily see that in this we have an inconsistency stupendous and destructive, to which the only reply that Christian Scientists can give is the Emersonian sneer that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”[1]
It is interesting to notice that Spinoza's psychology had the same defect. He says we know only two of the attributes of God, thought and extension, or mind and matter, and that neither limits or affects the other; and yet he has the three grades or classes of knowledge,[2] the inferior kinds of which are determined by the passivity of the mind; and he often speaks of the mind being passive. To what is it passive? To matter? No. To the divine mind? But its highest knowledge arises thereby. You cannot find an answer to this question in all that he has written. His psychology lacks a metaphysical basis, as does Mrs. Eddy's.
It is not so with the Neoplatonists. They are profounder thinkers than Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy and give a better explanation of human life. Spinoza's treatment of the human mind is mechanical and crude; Mrs. Eddy's is more so. Before she analyzes the rose, she causes its color and odor to fade away and extracts its sap and life. After eliminating all the elements of the human mind that she does not know what to do with, it is rather easy to dispose of the rest. On account of this crushing defect, which the genius of Mrs. Eddy either did not see or could not remedy, it is safe
