We are doubtless prepared for the statement that since vice consists in the absence of understanding or mind, virtue consists in the presence of understanding or mind. This is logical and it is the theory of both Christian Science and Neoplatonism. Let us not forget our convenient Christian Science funnel. Everything that has value or virtue must come out the little end as mind. If it will not do so it is without worth of any kind.
The one seemingly good thing that may be said about this ethical theory is that it simplifies wonderfully the moral problems of life. All we have to do is to think, to think profoundly or metaphysically, until we see that truth is all and error is nothing. And when we have done that we have reached the goal of existence, and need to do nothing more except to keep on so thinking. Yes, this is a very simple analysis of life. It enables us to consider questions of character as we would numbers in arithmetic and figures in geometry, as Spinoza ambitiously attempted to do. But the simplicity is secured at the sacrifice of the principal elements of human nature. When we eliminate from life and character all qualities and faculties except mathematical thinking by simply calling them non-entities, then it is a very easy matter to treat of moral relations and all relations. But the process is similar to that of an anatomist who says, “the flesh, the nerves and the blood are of no importance in the human system. They are non-entities; they do not really exist.
