with human illusions;”[1] “We may as well improve our time by solving the mysteries of being through an apprehension of divine Principle.”[2]
It will throw light on the language of these quotations to consider that Mrs. Eddy is thinking of the first cause of all as including within itself all effects. She is thinking of cause and effects under the “form of eternity” as Spinoza would express it,[3] not under the form of time. She is thinking of mind as comprehending all things, as a given object necessarily includes its essential qualities. In this sense it is evident that to know the cause is to know with certainty the effect. It is, however, using the words, cause and effect, in a sense not found in logic and common speech, where it is understood that an element of time, though it may be so small as to be imperceptible, intervenes between them. The idea of a cause that requires time to realize itself in its effect, is of course not an idea of “immortal Mind” which thinks only eternally.
This is a doctrine of the Neoplatonists. But first let us hear Spinoza who is so often the medium between them and Mrs. Eddy. He says: “As regards a true idea, we have shown that it is simple or compounded of simple ideas * * * and that its subjective effects in the soul correspond to the actual reality of its object. This conclusion is identical with the saying of the an-
- ↑ S. and H. p. 467f.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 90.
- ↑ Cf. Eth. 2. 44. Corollary, 2.
