Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/54

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The Origin of Christian Science.

how she is following them. If they talk of things that are beyond the power of the human mind to fathom, as they certainly do, still we must try to follow them and it may be that when they do this we can the more easily see her dependence on them. We are not concerned with the truth or the falsity of these speculations, but with the question whether or not Mrs. Eddy's system is in essential principles the same as that of the Neoplatonists. In other words, we are proving that Mrs. Eddy in claiming to be the recipient of a divine revelation and the discoverer of Christian Science is a philosophic plagiarist.

Having carefully studied what has been said as to the pantheism of Christian Science, it will not be very difficult, I hope, for us now to see that the god of Christian Science is an impersonal god. The language of Mrs. Eddy, already cited, in which she claims that “Principle” is the best term for God is sufficient in itself to justify this conclusion. Principle is not person and person is not principle. Principle is a quality of a person, or a rule for human action, or an abstract or primary truth. I am not able to think of it as being anything else. And to say that God is any one or all of these is to reduce him to limits much narrower than to say that he is a person. That God may be thought of as in some way limited is a cause of great concern to Mrs. Eddy, and to her infinity, or unlimitedness, is simply the sum total of all reality. She says: “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express