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 LETTERS TO 
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MIND OVER BODY 
 
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 LETTERS TO A FRIEND- 
 A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST 
 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JAMES H. WEST COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1909 
 By James H. West Company 
 
 
 
NOTE 
 
 The writer of these letters — origi- 
 nally written to a friend, as the title 
 indicates — refrains for two reasons 
 from attaching his name to them. 
 
 The first reason will readily be appre- 
 ciated by such readers of the letters as 
 are in the habit of doing their own 
 thinking. It is that the majority of 
 readers magnify or minimize the value 
 of an argument, or statement, according 
 as they estimate the importance of the 
 writer. 
 
 The second reason is that the writer 
 feels that he has merely put together 
 ideas of others, none of them new ; and 
 therefore that he has no claim to author- 
 ship. So he merely subscribes him- 
 self as 
 
 Editor. 
 
The great historic problem — the problem 
 alike of our earliest religions and our latest 
 philosophic culture — has been to reconcile 
 Nature and man, to fuse flesh and spirit, to 
 wed force and freedom, to harmonize law and 
 gospel, to marry mechanism and morals ; in 
 short, permanently to unite the indefinitely 
 great, which is the superb overbearing cos- 
 mos, with the indefinitely small, which is our 
 humble domestic earth, the pleasant house of 
 our abode, that whatsoever is most outward 
 or public and profane in existence may find 
 itself authenticated by that which is most in- 
 ward or private and sacred ; that so whatso- 
 ever is most absolute or material and there- 
 fore domineering and cruel in experience, 
 may become sanctified by association with 
 whatsoever is most contingent, most moral or 
 free, and therefore most gracious, pliable, 
 and orderly. 
 
 — Henry James ( the senior). 
 
MIND OVER BODY: 
 
 LETTERS TO A FRIEND — A CHRIS 
 TIAN SCIENTIST 
 
 " We have naught to fear from ultimate knowledge if 
 we but conquer all false shame, and quarry deep enough." 
 
 — Richard Wagner. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 Your frequent letters to me during the 
 
 past two years, urging with great persistency 
 
 that I become a Christian Scientist, and set- 
 
 ing forth your reasons why I should do so, 
 
 were carefully and thoughtfully read, each at 
 
 the time it was received. That I have not 
 
 replied to them is no doubt inexplicable to 
 
 you, in view of the warm friendship of our 
 
 boyhood days, which, I sincerely hope and 
 
 believe, still exists, notwithstanding that our 
 
 diverging paths in life have latterly put be- 
 
6 Mind Over Body 
 
 tween us the width of a continent. Why I 
 so persistently refrained from entering into 
 a controversy with you, I shall explain in 
 my next letter. 
 
 Much in Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and 
 Health, appeals to me; there is a spiritual 
 uplift to parts of it that are not so mystical 
 as to be incomprehensible to the reader. I 
 agree with many of Mrs. Eddy's postulates 
 — though some of the positions that, with 
 her, are assumptions, I reach as conclusions. 
 Much good is resulting from Christian Sci- 
 ence having entered the fields of religion, 
 philosophy, and therapeutics. 
 
 Because of these circumstances I regret 
 the unsympathetic criticisms — generally 
 unintelligent and too often acrimonious — 
 that are being made upon Mrs. Eddy and 
 Christian Science by members of the clergy 
 and by various magazines and newspapers. 
 These attacks — for the most part irrelevant 
 to the philosophy of Christian Science — cannot 
 but result, on the one hand, in preventing un- 
 thinking antagonists from discovering such 
 
Mind Over Body 7 
 
 good as is to be found in the philosophy ; 
 and, on the other hand, in a tendency to 
 close the minds of its devotees to any ana- 
 lytical examination. 
 
 While the arguments — or assertions — 
 pro and con, as to the authorship of the 
 book, Science and Health, may be inter- 
 esting from an historical point of view, they 
 cannot determine the value of the contents 
 of the book itself. Similarly, Shakespeare's 
 dramas will stand or fall regardless of whether 
 written by Shakespeare or by Bacon. The 
 sublime beauty of the Beatitudes does not 
 depend upon the authenticity of the author- 
 ship ascribed to the Gospels that contain 
 them, nor even upon the question as to who 
 uttered them. 
 
 There are those who cite the " fouling " of 
 the manna in the possession of those Israel- 
 ites who accumulated it in the wilderness, as 
 symbolical of the torments that have come 
 to Mrs. Eddy because of her material pos- 
 sessions. This has nothing to do with the 
 truth or falsity of Christian Science. 
 
8 Mind Over Body 
 
 Professedly with the purpose of making 
 the Christian Science church services im- 
 personal, all sermonizing is prohibited, and 
 the book, Science and Health, is made the 
 pastor. There are those who claim that this 
 intention is nullified by the introduction of the 
 personality of Mrs. Eddy into the services, 
 her name being announced each Sunday as 
 the author of Science and Health; and by 
 the further fact that once each month the 
 authorship of one of the songs, sung that day, 
 is ascribed to her. This is another criticism 
 that has nothing to do with the intellectual 
 aspect of the philosophy. 
 
 The controversies as to which of the two 
 injunctions of Christ should prevail, "The 
 laborer is worthy of his hire," as a justifica- 
 tion for the acceptance of fees and salaries, 
 for the prices charged for Christian Science 
 books, lectures, etc.; and, " Freely ye have re- 
 ceived, freely give," as a basis for condemna- 
 tion of alleged commercialism, — these contro- 
 versies have no bearing on the rationality of 
 the philosophy. 
 
Mind Over Body 9 
 
 On the other hand, I am not influenced 
 by the array of dukes, earls, judges, promi- 
 nent business and professional men, and 
 others, whose names and titles are, because 
 of their eminence, being exploited by Chris- 
 tian Science writers of magazine articles for 
 their psychological effect on readers whom 
 such names influence. Many there are who 
 " to the fascination of a name surrender judg- 
 ment hoodwinked." 
 
 Nor do the letters in the Christian Science 
 periodicals, fulsomely adulatory of Mrs. Eddy, 
 have weight with me. 
 
 I deprecate, as irrelevant, all these things 
 that I have mentioned. None of them touches 
 the philosophy of Christian Science. None 
 of them has any interest for me ; except, per- 
 haps, as it indicates states of mind of individ- 
 uals. 
 
 And here I wish to indulge in a little 
 retrospection. The atmosphere of the home 
 of your youth and of mine was identical. 
 We both were urged by our parents to 
 maintain an analytical state of mind ; to 
 
io Mind Over Body 
 
 refuse to accept a conclusion in any line 
 of thought — excepting that of theology — 
 without first sifting and examining for our- 
 selves the premises, and the process of 
 reasoning by which it was reached. But our 
 religious views were given to us as conclu- 
 sive ; they were not to be questioned. They 
 were not held by us as convictions ; though 
 this we did not know, for we gave no thought 
 to the matter. We had tacitly accepted as 
 true, doctrines that had been taught us from 
 childhood by those in whom we had implicit 
 confidence as competent to judge those mat- 
 ters for us. Our religious education as chil- 
 dren and as young people differed in degree 
 only, not in kind, from that of the Jesuit as 
 described by Prof. G. Lowes Dickinson, in 
 one of his essays, as follows : — 
 
 " The training of a Jesuit as prescribed in 
 the famous Institutes was based upon a process 
 which a modern man of science might de- 
 scribe as self-hypnotization. By intense and 
 solitary meditation, accompanied by physical 
 exercises, by fastings, flagellations, postures, 
 gfoanings, weepings, he forced himself, so 
 
Mind Over Body 1 1 
 
 far as possible, to re-enact in his own per- 
 son the Passion of Christ, to ascend with Him 
 to Heaven, to taste, in anticipation, the joys 
 of His Kingdom, and to share the tortures of 
 the damned in hell. Not the imagination 
 only, and the intelligence, but almost the very 
 physical senses, were compelled to co-operate 
 in this deliberate hallucination. He must not 
 only think and conceive ; he must hear, see, 
 touch, and taste. The whole personality, intel- 
 lectual, moral — one might almost say physical 
 — was run in this way into a final mold. 
 That it should take that shape, uncritically, 
 passively, not of conviction but of force, was 
 the essence of the whole process. But once 
 that was achieved, development was permitted 
 and encouraged along the lines thus rigidly 
 prescribed. The mind henceforth was the 
 tool of unquestioning faith. It might calcu- 
 late but it must not reason ; it might devise 
 means but it must not consider ends. Every 
 accomplishment the Jesuit may and should 
 acquire ; he should be a linguist, a mathema- 
 tician, a man of science, perhaps — above all, 
 a man of the world, accomplished, polite, per- 
 suasive, plausible, up to date in his knowl- 
 edge, his methods, his arts ; he may be any- 
 thing and everything, so long as he obeys and 
 does not think. He may study history as 
 much as he likes, but it must be history as in- 
 terpreted by the Church ; he may study Latin 
 and Greek, provided that he remain insensible 
 
12 Mind Over Body 
 
 to the classical spirit ; he may study science, 
 so long as he does not permit it to react upon 
 theology. Nay, all these things he ought to 
 study, in order that he may meet the enemy 
 on his own ground. Only that the enemy is 
 the enemy, that the truth is the truth, that 
 the Church is the Church, and that his whole 
 duty is to subordinate to the interest of his 
 Order all his powers, spiritual, moral, and 
 physical — this is the never forgotten com- 
 mand of his hypnotic dream, of the fixed idea 
 branded upon him at the outset of his career 
 by the deliberately non-rational discipline to 
 which he has been subjected. Once for all 
 he has been cured of the possibility of asking, 
 ' Why ? ' His reason has been killed ? No ! 
 It has been chained to the car of Faith, and 
 in the car rides theology triumphant, sur- 
 rounded by the saints of the Order, and crush- 
 ing under the wheels the heretic, the specu- 
 lator, and the unbeliever." 
 
 This is an extreme illustration ; but it 
 differs, as I have said, only in degree — not 
 in kind — from your own experience and 
 mine. It goes to show, as Professor Dickin- 
 son continues, that 
 
 " It is the object of an ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem not merely to create an atmosphere, but 
 to paralyze beforehand the agency by which 
 
Mind Over Body 13 
 
 that atmosphere might be disturbed ; with 
 the result, no doubt, of encouraging stability, 
 but only at the cost of arresting growth." 
 
 Many of the idols of our earlier years you 
 and I have shattered, only to take to our- 
 selves new ones. For instance, you have 
 repudiated the orthodox interpretation of the 
 meaning of the birth and death of Christ. 
 So have I, though the interpretation I now 
 hold differs from that which you now believe 
 to be true. But, as young people, we be- 
 lieved the doctrines of the immaculate con- 
 ception and the vicarious atonement to be 
 truth. 
 
 We — you and I — say we have progressed. 
 The real fact is that we have changed our 
 minds, and " Who saw false once, again may 
 falsely see." Do you see falsely now, or is 
 it I ? You cannot decide fairly without 
 knowing my point of view. And you have 
 forced me to give it to you. 
 
 But, you say you are sure you have the 
 truth now, because — as you say — the truth 
 of your philosophy is proven by its "demon- 
 
14 Mind Over Body 
 
 stration." And this brings me to the real 
 matter of this, my first letter ; and that is, 
 to ask that you consent to some " rules of 
 procedure"; that you agree to separately 
 consider each division of my argument. In 
 other words, I urge that you keep in force 
 that habit of thought — so marked in you in 
 our school-days — of insisting that first steps 
 shall come first ; that no attempts be made 
 to reach conclusions until primary and in- 
 termediate phases be analyzed. Applied to 
 this subject, this means that — as I have 
 before urged — you weigh separately each 
 part of my argument. If you would under- 
 stand me at all, you must agree to go with 
 me into an examination of two separate 
 phases of this matter ; — first, the religious 
 and cosmic philosophy of Christian Science ; 
 secondly, the relation of these to its system 
 of therapeutics, and to the " demonstration " 
 claimed for the latter, by which — you main- 
 tain — the former is proven to be true. 
 
 If you will not so consider it, it is useless 
 for me to go further. But, as Professor 
 
Mind Over Body 15 
 
 Dickinson says in the series of essays from 
 which I have quoted — the same being not a 
 criticism of religion, but of dogmatic theology : 
 
 " I hardly believe that it will be those who 
 have the finest sense of religion that will 
 resent my candor. Rather, it is precisely 
 they who will be most willing to investigate 
 the ground and nature of their belief, and 
 who will repudiate the application, to this 
 momentous question, of a method of hushing 
 up and slurring over which they would depre- 
 cate in any of the ordinary business of life." 
 
 And again he says : 
 
 " It is a poor religion that needs to rest 
 upon . . . the deliberate refusal to face what 
 we know of truth ; that takes refuge . . . 
 from a truth which it fears may be fatal to 
 itself." 
 
 It is well, also, to keep in mind the 
 thought expressed by Emerson : 
 
 " The life of man is a self -evolving circle, 
 which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes 
 on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, 
 and that without end. The extent to which 
 this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, 
 will go, depends on the force .or truth of the 
 
1 6 Mind Over Body 
 
 soul. For it is the inert effort of each thought, 
 having formed itself into a circular wave of 
 circumstance — as for instance, an empire, 
 rules of an art, a local usage, a religious rite 
 — to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify 
 and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick 
 and strong, it bursts over that boundary on 
 all sides and expands another orbit on the 
 great deep, which also runs up into a high 
 wave with attempt again to stop and to bind. 
 But the strong soul refuses to be imprisoned ; 
 in its first and narrowest pulses it already 
 tends outward with a vast force and to im- 
 mense and innumerable expansions." 
 
Mind Over Body 17 
 
 II 
 
 " Day has ever to dethrone the night anew." 
 
 — Richard Wagner. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 Dear Friend: 
 
 Although our relations have been less 
 intimate since the separation of our paths 
 five years ago — yours for college, mine for 
 the great West — the occasional visits that 
 I have had from our old friend and school- 
 mate, , have kept me in touch with 
 
 you ; so that I have known of your religious 
 transition from orthodoxy to agnosticism, and 
 of the mental pain you endured when first 
 you broke the chains of your early ecclesias- 
 tical education. My own experience has been 
 similar. 
 
 When your letters began to pour in upon 
 me, I almost yielded to your arguments ; 
 partly because of my notion of your mental 
 superiority — conscious as I was of the advan- 
 tages of your college education, which I had 
 been denied ; — partly because of my own 
 
1 8 Mind Over Body 
 
 unpreparedness. But it was probably the 
 latter that chiefly caused me to hesitate. 
 
 I had read Science and Health. But, 
 while you, because of your earlier familiarity 
 with philosophy and metaphysical lines of 
 thought, may easily have understood it, to 
 me it was so " stubbornly expansive and 
 elusive " — (this expression I found in a re- 
 view of Professor Henry James' recent book, 
 Pragmatism, and I liked it) — that I con- 
 cluded that it was beyond my comprehen- 
 sion ; and I think that the vast majority of 
 Christian Science devotees have this same 
 experience. Many " believe, because they 
 cannot understand " ; many " believe in order 
 that they may understand." Is it not so ? 
 
 Another reason for my tardiness in writing 
 to you was the inevitable unwillingness one 
 has to disturb in a friend, even were one able, 
 a state of mind that seems to result for him 
 in spiritual content. And, because of this 
 latter reason, I doubt if I should, even now, 
 break my silence, but for the fact that it has 
 reached me indirectly that you have said 
 
Mind Over Body 19 
 
 that I am a coward, and dishonest ; meaning, 
 of course, that you are satisfied that your 
 letters to me, and my re-reading of Mrs. 
 Eddy's Science and Health (which re-reading 
 I promised you) have resulted in my con- 
 viction that Christian Science is the truth, 
 but that I lack the courage to acknowledge 
 the fact of my conviction. 
 
 Knowing this manifestation of proselyting 
 zeal on your part to be a violation of the 
 spirit of your philosophy, and recognizing 
 the hurt that I experienced, because of your 
 charge, to be an injury to my self-love; I 
 should still have refrained from replying, but 
 that the self-complacency you manifest is but 
 too frequently exhibited by converts to any 
 new idea. I wish to make — by my act 
 of writing to you — a protest against intol- 
 erance. 
 
 I commend to your attention an utterance 
 of Mrs. Eddy's in The Independent (Nov. 22, 
 1906): — 
 
 I love the prosperity of Zion, be it promoted 
 by Catholic, by Protestant, or by Christian 
 
20 Mind Over Body 
 
 Scientist. . . I would no more quarrel 
 with a man because of his religion, than I 
 would because of his art. ... It is of com- 
 paratively little importance what a man thinks 
 or believes he knows ; the good that a man 
 does is the one thing needful, and the sole 
 proof of his Tightness. 
 
 But, as this is likely to be interpreted by 
 the Christian Science devotee to suit himself, 
 I like still better — because capable of but 
 one construction — the equally tolerant utter- 
 ance of the president of a literary society in 
 one of our large cities, himself a Christian 
 Scientist, in introducing four men who were 
 to read papers on religion from different 
 points of view : — 
 
 " Except in cases where self-interest disturbs 
 the equilibrium of a man's judgment, it is hard 
 to understand how one of ordinary intelligence 
 can express himself intolerantly of the relig- 
 ious beliefs of another when these are honestly 
 held and uprightly lived. 
 
 " If I condemn you for such beliefs, I say to 
 you practically this : * Your mental and moral 
 developments are very immature as compared 
 with mine ; your intelligence is less than mine ; 
 your capacity smaller ; your fiber coarser ; and 
 your aims lower. It is your evident and un- 
 
Mind Over Body 21 
 
 questionable duty to recognize my superior 
 judgment regarding your ideals and associa- 
 tions.' " 
 
 Because of phenomena that follow the ap- 
 plication of the Christian Science therapeu- 
 tic formula, you insist that these prove the 
 truth of your philosophy. But the post hoc, 
 ergo propter hoc argument is one of the most 
 dangerous fallacies known to logic, and one 
 that you will not permit for a moment in the 
 consideration of any philosophy but Christian 
 Science, or of any system of therapeutics 
 but your own. 
 
 A retrospect of any one's life will bring to 
 memory idol after idol which one has built to 
 one's self, most of which one has seen broken 
 because based upon untenable foundations or 
 carried to illogical superstructures. 
 
 In our earliest childhood we unquestion- 
 ingly accept as true — because of reliance 
 upon the statement of those in whom our 
 confidence is placed — the story of the reality 
 of Santa Claus. And our faith in the truth 
 of the story is but confirmed by the corrobo- 
 
22 Mind Over Body 
 
 rating evidence of the " gifts " we discover 
 on Christmas morning. As with the dis- 
 pelling of delusions of our after life, the shat- 
 tering of this idol of infancy is a shock. But, 
 for the time, the belief in the reality of Santa 
 Claus was, for us, truth. 
 
 So with the belief in the doctrine of the 
 vicarious atonement of Christ, which I men- 
 tioned in my first letter. A man who has 
 sunk to the lowest depths of degradation 
 happens upon a band of the Salvation Army, 
 and listens for a while to their talk about 
 " Christ dying that he might take upon him- 
 self our sins; that to believe thus is to be 
 cleansed from sin and to be born anew, and 
 so forth." So impressed is he that there 
 comes over him a feeling of happiness and 
 peace unknown to him before. Thus is 
 demonstrated the truth of the theory of a 
 vicarious atonement for sin ; and for him 
 henceforth, as for all others who believe thus, 
 this is truth. 
 
 But the Christian Scientist, rejecting this 
 interpretation of the purpose and conse- 
 
Mind Over Body 23 
 
 quence of the death of Christ — as do thou- 
 sands of others now — says to the theologian, 
 "the demonstration which you claim to be 
 because of your philosophy, and to be the 
 proof of its truth, requires — for me at least 
 — some other explanation. Your philosophy 
 must stand on its merits ; its truth is not 
 proven — for me — by the alleged demon- 
 stration. My cure for sin is the denial of 
 the reality of evil." 
 
 And, as with sin, similarly with sickness. 
 An Indian is sick and calls upon the " medi- 
 cine-man " of the tribe for relief. The latter 
 responds with incantations and beating of 
 tomtoms. Should the patient recover, the 
 Indians' traditional philosophy is sustained ; 
 namely, that through inherent value in noise 
 and unintelligible incantations, the Great 
 Spirit has exorcised the evil spirit that had 
 possessed the patient. And, for them, this 
 is truth. 
 
 As to results that have followed the ap- 
 plication of theories of the mental scientist, 
 the faith healer, the hypnotist, the mesmer- 
 
24 Mind Over Body 
 
 ist, the Indian medicine-man ; that have 
 accompanied pilgrimages to Holy Hills, to 
 holy wells, shrines, relics, etc., etc., the 
 Christian Scientist will deny that in them 
 is proof of the soundness of any proposed 
 theory. But he will not permit a similar 
 liberty as to his philosophy and the phe- 
 nomena that follow its application. 
 
 But, from the fact that similar results do 
 follow preceding events — the latter in them- 
 selves apparently dissimilar — am I not justi- 
 fied in insisting that you consider separately 
 your philosophy and its relation to the phe- 
 nomena that are connected with it ; and that 
 if the former be found to be unsound — or 
 if it even develop that there is valid ground 
 for difference of opinion — you entertain a 
 proffered explanation of the latter, even 
 should it differ from your own ? 
 
 For me, the achievement of physical heal- 
 ing, through mental instrumentalities, demon- 
 strates, not any of the special explanations 
 that have been advanced, but merely " the 
 presence of a poiver adequate to the effect" 
 
Mind Over Body 25 
 
 III 
 
 " There shall never be one lost Good ! 
 What was, shall live as before." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 My dear : 
 
 That most beautiful character, the bishop, 
 
 in Les Mis er able s, is described by Hugo as 
 
 follows : — 
 
 "Love one another: he declared that to be 
 complete ; he desired nothing more, and it 
 was his whole doctrine. When one day it was 
 said to him, ' Your " love one another " is a 
 stupidity,' he replied without discussion, * if 
 it be a stupidity, the soul ought to shut itself 
 up in it, like the pearl in an oyster.' And 
 he shut himself up in it, he lived in it, he was 
 satisfied absolutely with it ; laying aside the 
 mysterious questions which attract and which 
 dishearten; the unfathomable depths of ab- 
 straction, the precipices of metaphysics — all 
 those profundities, to the apostle converging 
 upon God, to the atheist upon annihilation ; 
 destiny, good and evil, the war of being 
 against being, the conscience of man, the 
 thought-like dreams of the animal, the trans- 
 formation of death, the recapitulation of exist- 
 
26 Mind Over Body 
 
 ences contained in the tomb, the incompre- 
 hensible engrafting of successive affections 
 on the enduring me ; the essence, the sub- 
 stance, the nothing, and the something, the 
 soul, nature, liberty, necessity ; difficult prob- 
 lems, sinister depths, toward which are drawn 
 the gigantic archangels of the human race." 
 
 I feel that, as Emerson says : — 
 
 " No man need be perplexed in his specula- 
 tions. Let him do and say what strictly be- 
 longs to him, and though very ignorant of books, 
 his nature shall not yield him any intellectual 
 obstructions and doubt. Our young people are 
 diseased with the theological problems of origi- 
 nal sin, origin of evil, predestination, the char- 
 acter of the universe, and the like. These 
 never presented a practical difficulty to any 
 man — never darkened any man's road who 
 did not go out of his way to seek them. 
 These are the soul's mumps and measles and 
 whooping-cough, and those who have not 
 caught them cannot describe their health or 
 prescribe their cure. A simple mind will not 
 know these enemies." 
 
 I believe in the absolute and universal 
 dominion of Good. You say that you, also, 
 do. Why then not act as though we so be- 
 lieve, and not make it a mere statement of 
 the lips, to be contradicted by our actions, or 
 
Mind Over Body 2J 
 
 confused in our thought by questions com- 
 paratively inconsequential, such as the non- 
 existence of evil, the character of the " tran- 
 sition, called death" (Mrs. Eddy's Unity of 
 Good, p. 3), the nature of the phenomenal 
 universe, and so forth ? 
 
 Do not reiterated and well-nigh inter- 
 minable disquisitions as to evil, its origin, its 
 reality, the responsibility for it, serve but to 
 divert our minds from, and tend to obscure, 
 the greater question, the reign of Good ? 
 Indeed, do they not tend to engender a 
 morbid interest in evil, as advertisements 
 of patent medicines tend to produce dis- 
 ease ? Do subtle attempts to discrimi- 
 nate between a theological " devil " — (as 
 a positive force for evil) — and " mortal 
 mind" — (which is said not to be, and there- 
 fore a negation) — have such a practical value 
 in our daily lives that we must give to them 
 so much thought? If I have to decide for 
 myself as to an action, I have no alternative ; 
 one way is right, the other way is not right. 
 This latter negation will, for my purpose, be 
 
28 Mind Over Body 
 
 more effective than to put it into the positive 
 form of a declaration, " Evil is unreal." If 
 one has sinned, the impulse which will lead 
 him to seek a prevention of the recurrence of 
 the sinful act, is the only really important 
 factor. The form into which his habit of 
 thought shapes this impulse — whether of 
 prayer, or the denial of the reality of evil, or 
 an earnest resolution, or penances — is of 
 very little consequence comparatively. The 
 impulse, God - implanted, is spiritual, and in 
 itself opens possibilities for the regenerating 
 influence of the spiritual forces. 
 
 And, similarly — for me — as to "matter," 
 so-called ; it is enough to believe that though 
 " man can never know what it is, in itself " — 
 any more than he can know what mind is — 
 "this need not deter him from making it a 
 feature of his philosophy, if he go no further 
 in his ideas of the nature of this appearance 
 of substance in the objects about him than 
 is involved in the office they fill in his experi- 
 ence." 
 
 With Browning, — 
 
Mind Over Body 29 
 
 " My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
 
 The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 
 That after Last, returns the First, 
 
 Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 
 That what began best, can't end worst, 
 Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst." 
 
 But all this will not satisfy you. You have 
 " demonstrations " to be explained ; demon- 
 strations that prove — for you — that your 
 " soul's mumps and measles and whooping- 
 cough " are things to be retained in your 
 soul's life. So I suppose I must, though 
 reluctantly, put into some kind of form my 
 notions concerning them. 
 
30 Mind Over Body 
 
 IV 
 
 ..." Finds tongues in trees, books in the running 
 brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 Dear : 
 
 Notwithstanding that I believe in the abso- 
 lute dominion of Good — as you say you do ; 
 notwithstanding that I believe Love to be 
 the only constructive force in the universe — 
 as you say you do ; notwithstanding that I 
 believe — with Mrs. Eddy — that "the only 
 realities are Infinite Mind and its infinite 
 manifestations"; although I believe thus — 
 and though I repudiate the materialistic con- 
 cept of physical phenomena — I am not a 
 Christian Scientist. 
 
 Says one of the thinkers of to-day : — 
 
 " From the fact of consciousness man learns 
 that he is alive, and hence that there is such 
 a thing as life. From his perception of ob- 
 jects other than himself he receives the idea 
 that there is something outside him which he 
 
Mind Over Body 31 
 
 thinks of as being made of a substance that 
 he denominates ' matter.' 
 
 " Of these two things — life and matter — 
 the existence of the first is the logical neces- 
 sity of the mere fact of consciousness ; it is 
 the supreme certainty of knowledge involved 
 in the very event itself ; it is the one thing 
 man is sure of. [Mrs. Eddy declares her 
 certainty of her own existence.] The sec- 
 ond, this appearance of something we call 
 matter, is a subject for conjecture and spec- 
 ulation. To this apparent something, whose 
 very existence must ever at best be only an 
 inference from certain features of his con- 
 sciousness, man gratuitously assigns a sub- 
 stance, and ignores the fact that his con- 
 sciousness of the object is the one and only 
 thing about it that he can really know." 
 
 What do we really know of " matter " — 
 so-called — even through the physical senses ? 
 Pick up a stone — what do we know about it ? 
 We say that it is rigid ; that it has weight ; 
 that it is gray, red, or brown ; and so forth. 
 What are rigidity, weight, color ? Color, the 
 natural scientist tells us, is vibration of light ; 
 and light, heat, and electricity, he tells us, are 
 the same thing — that is, force. Weight is 
 an expression of gravitation — that is, force. 
 
32 Mind Over Body 
 
 Rigidity is an expression of cohesion — that 
 is, force. In short, there is no appeal the 
 stone can make to any of the senses that we 
 shall not discover, upon examination, to be 
 a manifestation of force. Mrs. Eddy says 
 rightly, " We tread on forces." 
 
 But, it will be said, force cannot exist of 
 itself ; it must come from something, and 
 that something is " matter." We may readily 
 agree that force cannot exist of itself, but we 
 should require some satisfactory reason why 
 we should credit it to matter ; and this 
 reason — since it is the natural scientist who 
 seeks to place in matter itself the origination 
 of force — must have some sort of " scien- 
 tific " basis. Mrs. Eddy is perfectly right 
 when she says, " mere opinion is valueless." 
 
 By eliminating from our thoughts the 
 atomic, self-existent, self-perpetuating notion 
 of the objective universe — and with it, once 
 and for all, the correlated term " matter " ; 
 blotting the latter forever from our vocabu- 
 lary ; — and instead, always keeping in mind 
 Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the universe as 
 
Mind Over Body 33 
 
 " God's spiritual concept," perhaps we may 
 come to find, as Michael Angelo wrote, that 
 
 " All the lovely things we find on earth 
 Resemble, for the soul that rightly sees, 
 That source of bliss divine which gave us birth, 
 Nor have we first fruits or remembrance of heaven 
 elsewhere." 
 
 For you, it may be satisfactory to simply 
 affirm the physical senses and their percep- 
 tions to be products of " mortal mind " — 
 unreal — evil ; and then to refer for proof to 
 what you call your "demonstration." But I 
 have in mind an explanation, differing from 
 yours, of the phenomena that follow the ap- 
 plication of your philosophy. And, also, it is 
 through the testimony of the physical senses, 
 aided by reason — as in my consideration of 
 the stone — that I raise the doubt as to the 
 substantiality of the objective universe. 
 
 The differences between your conclusions 
 and mine are, I think, because of the extreme 
 to which Christian Scientist devotees carry 
 their interpretation of Mrs. Eddy's "man is 
 spiritual, he is not material." Our differ- 
 ences will undoubtedly be found to center 
 
34 Mind Over Body 
 
 around the answer to the inquiry as to the 
 validity of considering man as having three 
 planes of conscious existence — spiritual, 
 mental, physical — and without limiting God. 
 To satisfy you, it seems necessary to ration- 
 ally account for the legitimacy of the finite, 
 while maintaining faith in the Infinite. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy affirms Infinite Mind as a 
 postulate, and claims that the correctness 
 of her premise, and of her logic, is proven 
 by the " demonstration." (Remember, I in- 
 tend to consider, later, the connection be- 
 tween the demonstration and the philosophy.) 
 
 She frequently admonishes her readers to 
 " understand the Infinite," to "get some 
 proper notion of the Infinite." In an at- 
 tempt to examine the notion of infinity, in 
 such wise as may be possible, let us consider 
 " space," and by the only method of which I 
 can conceive. 
 
 Two objects are observed, as two hills ; 
 and a certain relation which is called "dis- 
 tance" is perceived to exist between them. 
 Another hill, perhaps much farther away, 
 
Mind Over Body 35 
 
 maintains a similar sort of relation to the 
 others — varying only in degree. With this 
 much of knowledge acquired by observation 
 (that is, by means of sensation and of ideas 
 derived therefrom ; also through perception 
 of the mental processes necessarily involved), 
 the imagination may carry the consideration 
 to a still more remote point — perhaps to a 
 star; and it appears perfectly clear that the 
 same sort of relation still obtains, that of dis- 
 tance. The same thought extended to the 
 farthermost star reveals but an extension of 
 distance. The mind then inquires as to 
 what is, or may be, beyond the most distant 
 star, and can conjecture nothing but never- 
 ending distance. This distance, extending in 
 all directions, is called " space." Of it the 
 mind can conceive no limit. So that the 
 notion conveyed by the word "space" in- 
 cludes not only all the space of which we 
 know, and all of which we can conceive, but 
 also all of which we can have no conception. 
 To the notion of its illimitability we give the 
 word "infinite." Mrs. Eddy recommends that 
 
36 Mind Over Body 
 
 we "master the infinite idea." No phase 
 of the infinite idea can be mastered. 
 
 As with space, so with duration. The latter 
 is, so far as this consideration is concerned, 
 of the same nature as distance, in that it is 
 discovered to be a relation existing between 
 two or more things other than itself, which 
 relation is realized by the mind from an ex- 
 amination of those other things. That is, 
 one event follows — or comes after — an- 
 other, and then another event follows, and 
 yet another. From the apprehension or 
 mental notice that we take of this sequence 
 of events, we realize a relation we call dura- 
 tion. If, in imagination, we ask ourselves if 
 there was duration before the first of all 
 events, we cannot with certainty answer No. 
 If, on the other hand, we look into the most 
 distant future that is comprehensible to us, 
 and ask ourselves if duration will continue 
 after the last of all events, we cannot with 
 certainty answer No. This notion of dura- 
 tion is called " time," and to that character- 
 istic that shows to us our inability to assign 
 
Mind Over Body 37 
 
 a beginning or an ending, we give the name 
 "infinite," an expression of our inability to 
 even apprehend. 
 
 The notion of time comes to man from the 
 observation of certain results of his own intel- 
 lectual processes. The notice of space comes 
 to him from his observation of the relation 
 of certain perceptions received through the 
 sense of touch. 
 
 But although the notion of infinity invites, 
 allures, entrances every imaginative soul, the 
 attempt to "master" or to "get some proper 
 sense of " infinity, even though it be merely 
 on the plane of space and time, forces the 
 intellectual powers of man back upon them- 
 selves, numbed by the effort to master prob- 
 lems that stagger both the understanding 
 and the reason, and that bring the soul to 
 humble adoration and reverent worship. 
 
 While we cannot affirm — as a matter of 
 knowledge, nor yet of the imagination — in- 
 finite space or infinite time, we can and do 
 admit of belief in both. This we can and 
 do formulate ; and thereby assert a belief in 
 
38 Mind Over Body 
 
 a something that is wholly incomprehensible. 
 We may, and do, know something of space and 
 duration, but it is parts of these of which we 
 have knowledge, and it is of still larger parts 
 that we have comprehension ; but of infinite 
 space and of infinite time we cannot even 
 conceive ; while we do believe, and cannot 
 avoid believing, that each is without begin- 
 ning and without end. Thus we learn that 
 it is the office of faith to carry us into realms 
 that are beyond the reach of knowledge, or 
 of comprehension, or even of conception. It 
 is by faith alone that we feel the idea of 
 infinity. This faith may become so strong 
 and so satisfying as almost to justify its pos- 
 sessor in calling it knowledge. 
 
 Conceding that we cannot prove any sub- 
 stantiality to "matter," so-called ; and willing 
 to agree with Mrs. Eddy that the universe is 
 " God's spiritual concept " and that the so- 
 called "laws of matter" are, instead, "laws 
 of mind " ; it seems, as I have said, necessary 
 to account rationally for the legitimacy of the 
 finite while maintaining faith in the infinite. 
 
Mind Over Body 39 
 
 Mrs. Eddy appears to consider this an impos- 
 sible task. But when we remember that the 
 notions of infinite time and of infinite space 
 are perhaps less vague than is the notion of 
 Infinite Mind ; and when we remember that 
 the notion of an hour, or of a month, or of 
 any other period of time, in no way detracts 
 from the belief in infinite time, or eternity, 
 and not only does not detract, but is in fact 
 a necessary precedent of such belief ; and 
 when we remember that the belief in infinite 
 space is in no way impaired by the recogni- 
 tion of bodies occupying space, but that such 
 recognition is the condition of the notion of 
 finite space, which is, in turn, the necessary 
 precedent of the formation of a belief in 
 infinite space; when we remember these 
 facts, perhaps we at least approach the solu- 
 tion of the difficulty. 
 
 I hear you say, "The real man is spirit, 
 and spirit knows not time or space, and con- 
 sequently the foregoing is without value." 
 What you say is true if one repudiates, as 
 you do, the physical. It is true that man's 
 
40 Mind Over Body 
 
 real life, his thinking, is internal ; but his 
 thought sometimes has regard for things ex- 
 ternal. His thought, in its entirety, must 
 involve the notion of time ; the external 
 things that he must contemplate force his 
 mind to include the notion of space. It 
 follows that we cannot think at all, save in 
 the conditions of the physical. Mrs. Eddy 
 substantiates this assertion when she abruptly 
 defines Infinite Spirit in terms of the physical, 
 "God occupies all space." 
 
 Why does she use that expression ? To 
 be understood, you say ? That's just it ! — 
 an appeal to the intellect, one of the phases 
 of man's consciousness ! Things spiritual are 
 more easily — aye, are solely — apprehended 
 in terms of the physical. There is no other 
 language for them. And but for her 
 claim of repudiation of the physical, Mrs. 
 Eddy had not found it so " difficult to find 
 language," as she herself says, "in which 
 to clothe metaphysical thought." For, as 
 Seneca says, "The language of truth is 
 simple." 
 
Mind Over Body 41 
 
 Time and space are circumstances, not 
 of spirit, God, but of His manifestations. 
 These appearances of things — that is, space 
 and time, and the phenomena they contain — 
 are incidents of the revelation of God to 
 human consciousness. And — for me — they 
 are a valid part of the whole. 
 
 We manifest our inability to know the 
 Infinite First Cause, when, as our nearest 
 possible approach to an expression of such 
 knowledge, we idealize — (in the Christ, the 
 Perfect Man, the highest form of creation) 
 — the human qualities ; and then look for, 
 and find, on a lower scale — still incompre- 
 hensible — these qualities manifested in all 
 physical expressions of the Creator. 
 
42 Mind Over Body 
 
 V 
 
 " It is following the stars we have that will lead to the 
 day to be." — Cope. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 My dear : 
 
 The following is from the Christian Science 
 
 Sentinel of November 6, 1902 : — 
 
 " ' Identity is the reflection of Spirit ' 
 {Science and Health, p. 477). But what 
 is it that reflects ? When I experience a 
 desire to turn from evil, to turn toward good 
 in any degree or in any direction, that desire 
 is certainly a reflection of Spirit, God; but 
 what is the ' I ' that experiences ? 
 
 " There is no such existence. This very 
 sense or supposition of an ' I ' to experience 
 a desire, is the false sense of personality, the 
 cloud that seems to hide the real identity. " 
 
 And, from Science and Health (p. 339) : — 
 
 ft Since God is All, there is no room for 
 His opposite." 
 
 In a letter to me, one of the clearest 
 theological thinkers of to-day analyzes in an 
 extremely interesting manner the foregoing 
 propositions, as follows : — 
 
Mind Over Body 43 
 
 " A ' sense or supposition,' but no one to be 
 the subject of this sense or supposition ! And 
 a reality hidden by a cloud that has no ex- 
 istence ; — and only ' seems ' to be hidden ! 
 
 "Think a moment. Begin at the begin- 
 ning ; let us lay a foundation of possible 
 philosophic concept by the affirmation of a 
 primal thing of which we can feel sure. 
 Let us lay down a fundamental postulate 
 that we can feel that we know. Is there 
 any conception of which each can say : ' This 
 I know ; not from authority, nor from tes- 
 timony, but from the inherent nature of 
 the thing itself, I know it ' ? Let us lay 
 down some fundamental principle of rational 
 thought as a basis for logical deduction. For 
 all logical thought must be founded upon 
 some self-evident primitive postulate. 
 
 " Is there any affirmation of which we can 
 say, ' I know ' ? There is indeed ! For we 
 go to the very absoluteness of certainty 
 when we declare that the fact of conscious- 
 ness is the one absolute knowledge of man. 
 Understand, I do not say that we can trust 
 what consciousness seems to say to us ; for 
 we cannot. Nor do I say that our conclu- 
 sions drawn from consciousness are reliable. 
 They are not. We may be entirely mistaken 
 concerning the nature of the things that con- 
 sciousness seems to reveal to us. We may 
 misunderstand the source of our conscious- 
 ness, and its meaning. But that we are — 
 as a fact — conscious, cannot be denied. 
 
44 Mind Over Body 
 
 " For the sake of illustration, bring this 
 conception into very simple experiences. We 
 seem to be sitting in a room. That is what 
 our consciousness tells us. Are we sure of 
 it ? No ; we may be deceived about that — 
 perhaps we are dreaming. But whether 
 dreaming or not, we think we are sitting 
 there. If not sitting there, then the seeming 
 is the fact of consciousness. We must be 
 conscious at least of the seeming, to be able 
 to think of it, and especially to speak of it. 
 Again, our consciousness tells us that we are 
 ill. Perhaps we are not ill, notwithstanding 
 that fact of consciousness. The ailments we 
 may seem to have may be fictitious, hallu- 
 cinations. But however many errors there 
 may be in our beliefs, the fact that we at 
 least seem to be sick is absolutely unas- 
 sailable. 
 
 "This separation of the question of the 
 fact of consciousness from that of reliability 
 of our interpretation of that fact, is of im- 
 mense moment in logical thinking ; for the 
 recognition of the fact enables us to under- 
 stand both how to think of creation, and 
 the office of ' mortal mind.' Agreeing with 
 Christian Scientists that man is in reality a 
 ' thought of God,' we hold that this thought, 
 in order to realize its individual identity, must 
 be so projected from its Source as to at least 
 seem to have an independent self-existence. 
 That seeming — which I have just called the 
 fact of consciousness — is man as we view 
 
Mind Over Body 45 
 
 him ; it is man as he is on earth. It is what 
 Christian Scientists call ■ mortal mind.' 
 
 "In the doctrine of creation as thus set 
 forth, we agree with Christian Scientists that 
 God is the Absolute, the Real, and the Only. 
 We hold this so fully that no expressions of 
 Christian Scientists can put it too strongly. 
 
 "Further than this, we agree that since 
 this is so, it follows that man has no being 
 in himself, or apart from God. ' In Him 
 we live, and move, and have our being.' 
 All the being, all the reality, all the source 
 of the consciousness which is so surely 
 avouched to us, is God. But it is man's 
 experience of this life — which experience, 
 we will grant, is a seeming — which is man 
 as we view him ; is the man we call the 
 1 natural man.' 
 
 " Man thus is two-fold ; the real, the divine 
 man ; and the seeming, the conscious man. 
 The appearance of being alive, this fact of 
 consciousness, is what we are as creatures of 
 God. And, on the other hand, we have, 
 within this creature, the divine man ; the 
 man who is the thought of God ; the perfect 
 man who is a veritable Son of God ; perfect 
 and unassailable by pain or sin." 
 
 Continuing, he then attempts to explain 
 the purposes of the Infinite Creator: — 
 
 " But why this two-foldedness ? Why 
 could not God bring out His thoughts into 
 
46 Mind Over Body 
 
 immediate, direct, and perfect expressions of 
 themselves, in instantaneous self-realization ? 
 And, especially, why this seeming of self -life ? 
 Why should there be even a belief that there 
 is such a thing as mortal mind ? 
 
 " The reply is that in such appearance only 
 could there exist anything that is not God. 
 Since God is all reality ; since there is 
 nothing out of Him that has being ; creation 
 cannot consist in producing another reality, 
 which would be another God; creation re- 
 sults in the production of this seeming. And 
 this seeming, to be a creation at all, must 
 seem to be what God is not — otherwise it 
 would be God and not a creation. Hence 
 its seeming weakness and evil — for these 
 are the things that God is not. 
 
 " But why should there be a creation at 
 all if these seemingly dire conditions are laid 
 upon it ? 
 
 " Because this creation is only a prelimi- 
 nary ; it is provisional to a real creation that 
 comes afterward ; the creation in which man 
 comes into the realization of this oneness 
 with God; and, thus, of his interior divine 
 life. This preliminary creation is absolutely 
 essential to the subsequent and real creation, 
 that man may have built up in himself a con- 
 sciousness of seeming self -life — as a contain- 
 ing vessel — in which or by means of which 
 may be given him a subsequent consciousness 
 of God. Man in this first state is an inver- 
 sion of God, — that he may be a basis for 
 
Mind Over Body 47 
 
 the later realization of God ' right side up.' 
 This natural man, 'mortal mind,' this seem- 
 ing which we find ourselves to be, is the 
 scaffolding to the building ; the mold to the 
 casting ; the matrix to the image. We now 
 seem to be, for the purpose of attaining after- 
 ward to true being ; we are at first ' mortal 
 minds ' that we may be born again into 
 images of God. Our consciousness, with all 
 its illusions, is the foundation of future con- 
 sciousness without illusion — a consciousness 
 of God." 
 
 Do you find a satisfaction in asserting 
 that, in the foregoing, the notion that the 
 Perfect can create the imperfect — even for 
 the purpose that the latter may attain per- 
 fection — is an inconsistency ? Mrs. Eddy 
 more than intimates that it is an absurdity, 
 which dilemma she avoids by postulating the 
 " seeming," as does my correspondent ; but 
 she fails even to attempt to give a reason 
 for this seeming existence of the seeming. 
 Does her method dispose of it ? 
 
 The foregoing attempted explanation of the 
 purpose of the Infinite creation is the best that 
 I have ever seen, and justifies the " natural 
 man," "mortal mind." But, since it may be 
 
48 Mind Over Body 
 
 justly held that he fails to explain, does the 
 failure not support my contention in an 
 earlier letter to you, that we cannot under- 
 stand the Infinite ? And we do not need 
 to understand. Nor is it necessary for us to 
 justify "the natural man," "mortal mind." 
 It is its own justification — as a part of the 
 Divine creative plan. 
 
 Repudiate, as a thing of evil — as do 
 Christian Scientists — man's experience on 
 the physical plane ? Throw away and con- 
 demn the ladder by which — and only by 
 which — man climbs to knowledge of the 
 supreme value of things spiritual as compared 
 with all else ? As well may the student of 
 higher mathematics deny — because he now 
 has no occasion to revert to them — that 
 axioms were the bases of his first steps. As 
 well may the finished pianist, able now to 
 interpret in the most spiritual way a Mozart 
 or a Beethoven, repudiate — merely because 
 forgotten as a thing of the past — the labor 
 of his earlier experiences in perfecting his 
 mechanical action. 
 
Mind Over Body 49 
 
 We cannot know the "why" of the In- 
 finite Mind, nor do we need to know. We 
 may not understand the "how," nor do we 
 need to do so. We have to deal only with 
 the facts that we do know. 
 
 As one of the greatest thinkers the world 
 has known (Swedenborg) says: "The things 
 which flow in through the external way are 
 the sensual things of the body ; but they do 
 not flow in of themselves, but are called forth 
 by means of the internal man, in order that 
 they may serve as a plane for the celestial and 
 spiritual things which inflow from the divine 
 through the internal way." 
 
 I wish to carry a little further the line of 
 thought suggested by the quotations that 
 precede this letter. 
 
 You look upon man as a reflection of God, 
 and cite — as illustrations — a reflection in a 
 mirror and a ray of light from the sun. But 
 to my mind these are not analogous to the 
 relation man bears to his Infinite Cause. 
 Man is more than a reflection ; he is an ex- 
 pression, a manifestation; he has conscious- 
 
50 Mind Over Body 
 
 ness — is conscious of his own existence, of 
 his own entity, of his emotions, his intel- 
 lectual and physical capabilities. And exist- 
 ence is being. Being must manifest itself. 
 
 The notion of the individual entity of the 
 ego — even including its expression on the 
 mental and physical planes — in no way de- 
 tracts, in my opinion, from the oneness of the 
 Absolute. 
 
 One quality of Divine Being we conceive 
 as Love — Infinite Love. Love, whether in 
 the human, or in the Infinite, is unthinkable 
 except it have somewhat — other than itself 
 — upon which it can exercise itself. And 
 has the Source whence it emanated been 
 diminished in any degree by love that 
 has been manifested ? On the contrary, we 
 know that even in man the love impulse 
 increases with each accepted opportunity for 
 its expression. Did the love that Mrs. Eddy 
 manifested in writing " Science and Health " 
 decrease, or increase, her capacity for loving ? 
 And yet this expression of herself became 
 manifest as something other than herself — 
 yet, in a sense, as part of herself. 
 
Mind Over Body 51 
 
 Do you claim — in this connection — that 
 in a work of love one is but the instrument 
 through which the Infinite Love works ? I 
 agree with that ; in the last analysis all comes 
 from God. But the Divine love-impulse, God- 
 implanted in me, is there for me to heed or 
 to pervert as my God-implanted will decides. 
 In the parable of the talents, he that hid his 
 talent in the ground chose to do so, and no 
 attempt to blame " devil " or " mortal mind " 
 as the cause, would have freed him from his 
 self-condemnation. He that improved his 
 talent chose to do so, and in so doing placed 
 himself in accord with the eternal principles 
 of right — God — and with a consequent in- 
 crease in his capabilities. 
 
 We may think of the ego, man, as having 
 his anchorage in the Source whence he came, 
 yet a separate entity ; and that, as an expres- 
 sion of Infinite Love and himself imbued 
 with love, no diminution of the Source is 
 caused thereby ; necessarily a separate entity, 
 else would God have only himself to love. 
 Carrying this further, why may we not think 
 
52 Mind Over Body 
 
 of this individuality of the ego as involving 
 the idea that man is in like manner inher- 
 ently possessed of other qualities that we 
 ascribe to the Infinite ? — such as : 
 
 (a). Will. Whether I shall, or shall not, 
 do that which I know to be right, I de- 
 termine for myself; otherwise I am an au- 
 tomaton, and am not responsible for my acts. 
 
 (b). Intellect. Mrs. Eddy says "The 
 time for thinkers has come." 
 
 (c). Even the power of perception through 
 the physical senses, by means of which, aided 
 by reason, man may come to interpret the 
 universe as " God's spiritual concept " ; — 
 all of these, without having lessened the in- 
 finite character of God, their Source. 
 
Mind Over Body 53 
 
 VI 
 
 " To me the converging objects of the universe perpetu- 
 ally flow. 
 All are written to me and I must get what the writing 
 means." — Walt Whitman. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 Dear : 
 
 I claim that, in a philosophy that declares 
 spirit to be All — to the exclusion of all 
 else, in which sense Mrs. Eddy makes that 
 declaration — reason has no more legitimate 
 place than have the physical senses, since 
 the former is no more on the spiritual plane 
 than are the latter. And yet, through her 
 approving reference to the syllogism, and her 
 appeal to logic (the science of methodical 
 reasoning), Mrs. Eddy legitimatizes intellect, 
 but declares the physical senses and their 
 evidence to be products of " mortal mind" — 
 unreal — evil. I have already shown what I 
 believe to be the validity of the use of the lat- 
 ter (the evidence of the senses) as a basis for 
 reaching the conclusion that the substan- 
 
54 Mind Over Body 
 
 tiality of objective phenomena cannot be 
 proven ; — and, at the same time, as a basis 
 for the possibility of a belief in the reality of 
 the incomprehensible. 
 
 The same reasoning applies to every form 
 of human life and consciousness. An image 
 of infinitude is in every possible direction. 
 Every physical seed, in its endless potenti- 
 ality of growth through the cycles of the 
 future ; and in its ability to multiply till it 
 fills all earths — that is, without limit — is an 
 image of the same thing ; and this — for 
 me — without restricting, in any degree, the 
 Absolute. 
 
 On the contrary, as Emerson says, "The 
 true doctrine of omnipresence is that God 
 reappears with all His parts in every moss 
 and cobweb," and, " We can never see Chris- 
 tianity from the catechism ; from the past- 
 ures, from a boat on the pond, from amidst 
 the songs of wood-birds, we possibly may." 
 
 With his senses, man perceives a physical 
 sun — (not a " material " sun — we have re- 
 pudiated the word). The fact that to these 
 
Mind Over Body 55 
 
 senses it appeared at one time that the 
 sun rotated around the earth, might possibly 
 — as Christian Scientists make use of the 
 fact — be a justification for the repudiation 
 of the testimony of the senses, except for 
 the fact that it was these same senses, aided 
 by reason, that finally evolved the theory, 
 now accepted, as to the movements of the 
 sun and the earth relative to each other. 
 Surely the spiritual sense had no share in 
 bringing about this corrected interpretation 
 of astronomical phenomena. 
 
 But the spiritual sense is responsible for 
 the interpretation of the beneficent warmth of 
 this sun as a manifestation of Infinite Love, 
 its cause ; and of the light of this sun as an 
 expression of Infinite Wisdom, its cause. 
 But, before this interpretation was possible, 
 the physical senses must have seen and felt. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy speaks of the rose as " a smile 
 of God." But this idea would be impossible 
 to one with no sense of sight, or smell, 
 through which, if at all, must be per- 
 ceived the beauty and the fragrance, which 
 
56 Mind Over Body 
 
 are the characteristics that give to the spirit- 
 ual sense the opportunity that begets the 
 thought so beautifully expressed. 
 
 The smile of God is indeed in the rose, 
 but the love of God is made manifest in no 
 slighter degree in the much less beautiful 
 root. The Divine Mind is as fully revealed 
 in the havoc - working avalanche, properly 
 viewed, as in the falling rain. 
 
 " The heavens are telling the glory of God 
 and the firmament showeth his handiwork," 
 but 
 
 " 'T is not in the high stars alone, 
 
 Nor in the cup of budding flowers, 
 Nor the red-breast's mellow tone, 
 
 Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, 
 But in the mud and scum of things, 
 There always, always, something sings." 
 
 I see fair fields, silvery streams, the sweep 
 and curve of woodland or of mountain range, 
 the restless toil of mighty ocean ; I behold 
 the radiance of the orb of day, and, when 
 his light is withdrawn, the glories of the 
 star-strewn vault are unrolled ; aye, I see the 
 marvelous mechanism of the human body. 
 
Mind Over Body 57 
 
 All things such as these reveal — for me — 
 the Infinite Love and Wisdom. 
 
 " As wider skies broke on his view, 
 God greatened in his growing mind ; 
 Each year he dreamed his God anew, 
 And left his older God behind. 
 
 " He saw the mighty scheme dilate, 
 In star and blossom, sky and clod, 
 And as the universe grew great, 
 He dreamed for it a greater God." 
 
 What is it that we love in our fellow-man ? 
 Not intellectual attainments or potentialities ; 
 these we but admire. It is spiritual qualities, 
 developed or latent, that inspire love. But 
 I cannot know of these in a fellow-man unless 
 they be expressed. And this can only be 
 through some deed of kindness, some act of 
 service, a word, or a facial expression ; each 
 and all possible of manifestation on the plane 
 of sense-life only, involving the use of the 
 body. And I must see the act or its conse- 
 quence, or hear the word, before I am able 
 to think or to say of the impulse, that it origi- 
 nated in the spiritual. Effect must precede a 
 disposition to even look for cause. Whether 
 
58 Mind Over Body 
 
 or not I agree with Christian Science, I be- 
 lieve Mrs. Eddy to have been impelled by 
 the highest spirituality, manifested finally in 
 a book. And whether or not this contain 
 truth, I must read it with my sense of sight 
 before I can determine. 
 
 This idea — that one cannot discern the 
 spiritual qualities in another, except primarily 
 through the physical senses, and except they 
 be manifested on the physical plane — I 
 recently suggested to a friend, a Christian 
 Scientist. And though I had just previously 
 cautioned her that by " physical "I did not 
 mean "material," as the materialist uses the 
 latter word, she remarked, " I don't see how 
 you can call ' evil ' good." I disclaimed hav- 
 ing done so. " But you call ' matter ' good," 
 she insisted. I hadn't been talking about 
 matter at all. 
 
 That she could not make the discrimina- 
 tion, that I sought, between the ideas "phys- 
 ical" and "material," I believe to be due 
 to the constant iteration and reiteration — 
 in Science and Health — of the words 
 
Mind Over Body 59 
 
 " matter" and "material," and the less fre- 
 quent, though indiscriminating, use of the 
 word "physical"; so that when either of 
 them was used it meant to her nothing but 
 material " atoms." 
 
 To the same friend I once presented 
 the idea of one's inability to think of the 
 rose as " the smile of God," except it 
 first be perceived by the physical senses. 
 She wanted to know if " the savage would 
 see the rose as the smile of God" — mean- 
 ing, of course, that his lack of spiritual devel- 
 opment would prevent, for him, such thought. 
 Granted that this be so, it had no bearing 
 whatsoever upon my contention. If you and 
 I are listening to a Greek, the fact that you 
 understand the Greek language and that I 
 lack that ability does not disprove the notion 
 that to understand it one must first hear it. 
 
6o Mind Over Body 
 
 VII 
 
 " For, what we call this life of man on earth, 
 This sequence of the soul's achievements here, 
 Being, as I find much reason to conceive, 
 Intended to be viewed eventually 
 As a great whole, not analyzed to parts, 
 But each part having reference to all." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 Remember, I am merely suggesting to you 
 what comes to me — I offer it not dogmatic- 
 ally. 
 
 You say " God is good and is All, con- 
 sequently there can be no evil." But I think 
 that I believe this in a way fully as compre- 
 hensive, as absolute, as you do. 
 
 " God 's in his heaven, 
 All 's right with the world." 
 
 Evil is ignorance — (a substitution of one 
 negation for another ? ) — an absence of knowl- 
 edge — knowledge of laws that originate in 
 the spiritual and that are everywhere and 
 
Mind Over Body 6.1 
 
 always operative on the three planes of man's 
 life. 
 
 God created man that He might have 
 something to love, and without lessening His 
 infiniteness. He endowed man with a will, 
 with which to choose to conform or to not 
 conform to spiritual law, as, through percep- 
 tion and experience, he comes to know it. 
 And He has ordained that man shall suffer 
 if he chooses not to put himself in conso- 
 nance with His laws. Though man sin, God 
 beholds and says, " It is good ; he will come 
 to know, through the consequence of his 
 sin." It is in this sense that I look upon 
 evil as a negation ; and that that which — in 
 isolated, individual separateness — appears as 
 evil, disappears as such when the whole 
 scheme is contemplated of the purpose of 
 man's existence in the flesh — the develop- 
 ment of character. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy expresses this same notion 
 when she says, " Sorrow is salutary, through 
 great tribulation we enter the Kingdom, trials 
 are the proof of God's care." But sorrozv is 
 
62 Mind Over Body 
 
 purely a mental state, and as negative as 
 evil. And "sorrow is salutary," not evil — 
 according to Mrs. Eddy — the crucible in 
 which man, through experience in his life on 
 the physical plane, comes to know of the con- 
 sequences of the violation of spiritual law ; 
 consequences avoidable had he but known. 
 In the Bible, the reproof of the slothful 
 servant is but symbolical of his remorse, of 
 his self-condemnation ; the " well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant," symbolizing the 
 happiness that comes from a consciousness 
 of harmony with spiritual law. 
 
 Muriel Strode, in My Little Book of 
 Prayer, says : — 
 
 I begged to escape from suffering ; I prayed 
 to God to save my soul from sin. To-day I 
 stand aghast at the thing I should have been 
 had my prayer been heard. 
 
 It does seem as though it is necessary 
 for man to experience "sorrow," "trials," 
 " great tribulation " ; to go down into the 
 depths, before he can understand and appre- 
 ciate that 
 
Mind Over Body 63 
 
 " To have is oft to lose — the quaffed cup holds 
 No promise of sweet wine. O fools and blind — 
 To take the less for the more, the passing day 
 For an eternity of triune joy ! 
 Better long aeons of pure ecstasy 
 Than transient moments of voluptuous bliss, 
 Which burn to leave dead ashes in their track." 
 
 In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar 
 Wilde expresses his appreciation of this 
 thought, born of his experience : — 
 
 " Ah ! happy they whose hearts can break 
 
 And peace of pardon win ! 
 How else may man make straight his plan 
 
 And cleanse his soul from sin ? 
 How else but through a broken heart 
 
 May Lord Christ enter in ? " 
 
 But does not the fact that only through 
 experience do we come to know, seem to in- 
 dicate man's life on the physical plane — with 
 all that seems evil to his limited vision — to be 
 a part of the beneficent Divine creative plan, 
 rather than a product of "mortal mind," with 
 the meaning the devotees of Christian Science 
 have come to give this expression — a syn- 
 onym for the "devil"? 
 
 There being, as I have shown in my former 
 letters, a legitimacy to the physical in con- 
 
64 Mind Over Body 
 
 sidering the Infinite plan, I cannot avoid a 
 reasoning similar to the foregoing when con- 
 sidering pain and disease, resulting in the 
 conclusion that they are as valid as sorrow. 
 As the latter brings man to a recognition of 
 his inharmony with God's laws on the spirit- 
 ual plane, so the former — warnings that 
 God's laws that govern on the physical plane 
 are being violated — are in that sense as salu- 
 tary as sorrow. Remember, I do not look 
 upon these laws as " laws of matter," a term 
 so objectionable to you ; they are laws ema- 
 nating from the Divine source and pertain to 
 the physical {not "material") phenomena. 
 
 So, for me, the human body, being not a 
 product of "mortal mind," but, instead, the 
 habitation of the ego — no less so because a 
 microscopic examination of the brain fails to 
 disclose mind — is as worthy an object of 
 admiration as is the rose. And, if it be not 
 permitted to induce a morbid interest in the 
 physical, a knowledge of physiology — which 
 is under condemnation with you and with 
 those who think with you — seems to me to 
 
Mind Over Body 65 
 
 be as justifiable as is a study of botany, 
 that is, the physiology of plants, which you 
 permit. 
 
 Having in mind that certain physical laws 
 (not "material" laws, not laws of "mortal 
 mind," but laws established by Infinite Love 
 and Wisdom) declare that man needs fresh 
 air and sunshine for the maintenance of his 
 body, a reasonable attention to hygienic con- 
 ditions — avoiding any tendency to morbid 
 mental absorption in them — is in accord 
 with the intent which those laws manifest. 
 
 A friend of mine asked a Christian Sci- 
 entist why she ventilates her home. She 
 replied, resentingly, "Not for health pur- 
 poses, certainly."* He forebore pressing for 
 an explanation, understanding that she meant 
 that she ventilates solely because vitiated air 
 is unpleasant to her. But, even so, is not 
 the resulting disagreeableness a mere mental 
 concept, in the sense in which you claim lack 
 of health to be ? Why ventilate ? 
 
 * The Christian Scientist may do no act " for health 
 purposes." 
 
66 Mind Over Body 
 
 Since you are a musician, I shall end this 
 letter by trying to make clearer my meaning 
 in regard to the non-existence of evil, by 
 using a musical symbol. 
 
 Imagine a musical composition that con- 
 cludes with a sub-tonic chord, or with a dis- 
 sonance. First, could the resulting mental 
 pain be, except through the physical sense 
 of hearing? And is not this consciousness 
 of incompleteness, this yearning for the tonic 
 chord, the rest-note, illustrative of man's real- 
 ization — through experience and the protests 
 of conscience — of having not chosen the 
 right way ; symbolical of his longing for the 
 ideal, the spiritual ; illustrative also, through 
 the physical sense of pain, of his inharmony 
 with God's laws that govern on the physical 
 plane ? 
 
 But, the fact that the dissonance is a legiti- 
 mate part of the completed symphony, and 
 that it is not discordant unless heard separate 
 or apart, is analogous to my notion that 
 sorrow, evil, pain, are "salutary," have their 
 
Mind Over Body 67 
 
 uses, and are not evil except they be re- 
 garded without considering their relation to 
 the whole of man's conscious existence. 
 
 It is in this sense that I believe " All is 
 good, there is no evil." 
 
 " To feel, although no tongue can prove, 
 That every cloud that spreads above 
 And veileth love, itself is love ; 
 All discord, harmony not understood." 
 
68 Mind Over Body 
 
 VIII 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 In the face of the phenomena connected 
 with mental science, faith - healing, New 
 Thought, Spiritual Science, Christian Sci- 
 ence, hypnotism — to say nothing of the or- 
 dinary psychological phenomena of every-day 
 life — no thoughtful person dare deny the 
 influence of the states of the mind over the 
 body — for good or for ill. And I believe 
 that, superior to these and through these, the 
 spiritual forces of the Divine Mind work. 
 
 Did I believe — in the way that you do — 
 that spirit is all ; that consequently there can 
 be no legitimate place for the intellectual or 
 physical ; that these are illusions of " mortal 
 mind " ; there could be for me but the con- 
 clusion that, the alleged " demonstrations " 
 prove the truth of Christian Science. But, 
 believing the intellectual and physical to be 
 legitimate parts of the "universe, God's 
 
Mind Over Body 69 
 
 spiritual concept " ; and seeing that healings 
 of physical illnesses — aye, and spiritual ill- 
 nesses — result from, or at any rate follow, 
 mental therapeutic methods other than yours, 
 I again insist, for myself, upon the right to 
 inquire if some law be not common to 
 them all. 
 
 God is the power ; what is the law, what 
 the process ? 
 
 You will be as ready as I — doubtless even 
 more ready — to claim that a very consider- 
 able percentage of the cases of illness for 
 which physicians have been called would 
 have disappeared without such intervention. 
 And I maintain that the same applies to a very 
 large percentage of alleged Christian Science 
 cures. 
 
 There is no one who has not experienced 
 ailments that have, as one might say, "dis- 
 appeared of themselves " — a cut, a bruise, a 
 head-ache, a fever, and even more serious in- 
 dispositions, to which, because of the mind 
 having been otherwise occupied, little or no 
 attention was paid ; the disappearance doubt- 
 
70 Mind Over Body 
 
 less indirectly accelerated because of the lack 
 of attention. 
 
 Was any remedial force at work other than 
 the power of Nature ? 
 
 As to cures that have been brought about 
 through mental therapeutics, " whatever the 
 powers may be that accomplish the effects 
 we are considering in reference to our mental 
 states, they cannot be essentially different 
 from the forces that do such things in the 
 ordinary experience of life. He who is ill, if 
 he be properly cared for, and if his vital 
 forces have sufficient strength, will recover, 
 and we say the power of Nature did it. For 
 the man who breaks an arm, the power of 
 Nature will, in a marvelous way, form new 
 bone at the point of fracture and knit the 
 pieces together. 
 
 " What is this « power of Nature ' that per- 
 forms thus, in the common experience of us 
 all, a cure as wonderful as any claimed by 
 faith-curist, Christian Scientist, mental scien- 
 tist, or hypnotist ? If, by the power of Nat- 
 ure, we mean some inherent, inanimate force 
 
Mind Over Body Ji 
 
 of ' material particles,' then the words express 
 a doctrine from the infernal regions. The 
 power of Nature in healing a broken arm is 
 simply the power of life, which in a marvel- 
 ous way descends into the body from the 
 Infinite Source of life and effects the cure. 
 "All healing, then, of the kind we are 
 considering must be looked upon as simply 
 results of methods whereby the fountains of 
 life are more copiously opened and obstacles 
 removed that prevent their influence. Heal- 
 ing from what is looked upon as some spirit- 
 ual cause, and healing by means of what we 
 call the ordinary processes of Nature, must 
 in their essence be identical. Both are the 
 effects of the power of life. Both are from 
 God." 
 
 The law is the law of suggestion ; the 
 process is the removing of the mental ob- 
 stacles to the operation of the life-giving, life- 
 maintaining forces from the spiritual, which 
 are the effective causes of phenomena mani- 
 
72 Mind Over Body 
 
 fested on the physical plane. But this process 
 is not peculiar to Christian Science alone. 
 
 In many cases there is necessary only a 
 diversion of the mind to another channel, a 
 substitution of a new habit of thought for the 
 existing one. In other cases an efficient aid 
 may come through a belief in the proposed 
 remedy, which belief itself acts as the diver- 
 sion. 
 
 I believe that, in cases where cures have 
 followed the "treatments " of Christian Sci- 
 ence healers — cases in which the mental 
 state needed some kind of intervention to 
 give the life-forces opportunity — sometimes 
 the mere diversion was all that was operative ; 
 sometimes the diversion that came from the 
 belief that in the philosophy itself lay some 
 curative force. 
 
 So long ago as 1784, Benjamin Franklin 
 wrote from Paris in regard to mesmerism : 
 
 " Mesmer is still here. ... I suppose all 
 the physicians in France put together have 
 not made so much money, during the time 
 
Mind Over Body 73 
 
 he has been here, as he alone has done. . . . 
 There are so many disorders which cure them- 
 selves, and such a disposition in mankind to 
 deceive themselves and one another on these 
 occasions ; and living long has given me so 
 many opportunities of seeing certain remedies 
 cried up as curing everything and yet soon 
 after laid aside as useless ; I cannot but fear 
 that the expectation of great advantage from 
 this new method of treating diseases will 
 prove a delusion. That delusion may, how- 
 ever, and in some cases will, be of use while 
 it lasts. There are in every great, rich city, 
 a number of persons who are never in health, 
 because they are fond of medicines and are 
 always taking them, whereby they derange 
 the natural functions and hurt their constitu- 
 tion. If these people can be persuaded to 
 forbear their drugs, in expectation of being 
 cured by only the physician's finger — or an 
 iron rod — pointing at them, they may pos- 
 sibly find good effects, though they may 
 mistake the cause." (Sparks' Franklin, vol. 
 1, p. 504.) 
 
 You will — as will I — commend Franklin 
 for his incredulity in respect to this particular 
 " delusion," as he calls it ; and for his con- 
 demnation of the drug habit. But it is to the 
 final clause that I wish to call your attention 
 — "though they may mistake the cause." 
 
74 Mind Over Body 
 
 You will agree that they did mistake the 
 cause. And you will claim that the cause 
 was mental, and I agree to that. But I con- 
 tend that the results — as were those follow- 
 ing the incantations of the Indian " medicine- 
 man" and the treatment of mental scien- 
 tist, Christian Scientist, hypnotist, and so on 
 — were because of the subconscious action of 
 the changed line of conscious thought, mani- 
 festing itself in the restoration of the natural 
 function of the organs of a "physical" body. 
 
Mind Over Body 75. 
 
 IX 
 
 " Our highest truths are but half-truths. 
 Think not to settle down in any truth. 
 Make use of it as a tent in which to pass a summer night, 
 but build no house of it, or it will be your tomb." 
 — Ernest Crosby. 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 Not long ago, one of the leading physicians 
 of Chicago read a paper before the Chicago 
 Literary Club, exhibiting such a marked de- 
 parture from the usual line of thought of the 
 old-time practitioners, and of such value to 
 this present discussion, that I quote at length 
 from it : — 
 
 ". . . . The soul, however distinct its 
 image to the eye of faith, is not visible to the 
 eye of physiology, and hence is beyond the 
 pale of this discussion ; those phenomena 
 which, from habit and convenience, we call 
 the mind, are manifestations of force inherent 
 in the physical universe, and are different in 
 no wise, except in degree, from the phenom- 
 ena displayed by the lowliest creatures that 
 have received the divine afflatus — life. 
 
j6 Mind Over Body 
 
 ". . . . Certain functions of the body 
 seem to be endowed with an intelligence of 
 their own — independent of the conscious, 
 individual mind ; that is, from the standpoint 
 of this conscious mind, they are automatic. 
 This automatic intelligence — which is plainly 
 the inherited, crystallized experience of count- 
 less ancestors in the preservation of the race 
 — we call instinct, or emotion. 
 
 " The egoistic mind of man, his conscious 
 memory and his reason, whereby his instinct- 
 ive mind establishes communication with the 
 outside world, is biologically merely the serv- 
 ant of this instinct ; it is the dog leading the 
 blind man, but only a dog after all. 
 
 " My main proposition in the biological 
 definition of mind is, therefore, that the 
 instincts are the essential mind, the trans- 
 mitted intelligence of the race, and that they 
 directly control the vital organs ; while the 
 conscious intellect is the subservient mind, 
 which has no direct communication with the 
 essential organs. 
 
 " That the emotions are directly — the 
 reason only indirectly — associated with the 
 vital bodily functions needs no demonstra- 
 tion, because illustrations are familiar to all. 
 Thus, no man can at will strengthen or 
 weaken his heart-beat, accelerate or retard 
 his pulse, blanch or redden his cheek, arrest 
 his digestion, evacuate his stomach, or in- 
 crease the secretion of his sweat-glands ; yet 
 when dominated by the instincts fear, anger, 
 
Mind Over Body J J 
 
 grief, and so forth, he regularly does one or 
 other of those things, even against the dic- 
 tates of reason. This absolute control of 
 the instinctive — as distinguished from the 
 rational — mind over vital organs, is nicely- 
 shown at the first surgical clinic of a medical 
 college term, when one or more freshman 
 spectators on the benches become faint or 
 nauseated as soon as the teacher of surgery 
 spills blood. 
 
 "That a mental influence which so com- 
 pletely dominates vital functions can, by ex- 
 cessive or prolonged activity, derange those 
 functions, is both plausible and demonstrable ; 
 and it is equally true that an arrest of such 
 emotional activity may be followed by a 
 restoration of normal functions. 
 
 " Mental influences are valuable in the 
 treatment of disease in so far as they secure 
 a proper balance of the patient's emotions, 
 and, through these, normal bodily functions. 
 Mental influences have, therefore, a theoreti- 
 cal increment of value even in organic dis- 
 ease, since by calming the fear of death or 
 other strong emotion, they may improve 
 digestion, circulation, and so forth, and thus 
 enable the body to battle more vigorously 
 with the invader. That the aid afforded 
 through the patient's mind against such tan- 
 gible foes is, however, trivial, is illustrated by 
 the familiar observation that the consump- 
 tive's confidence in his ultimate recovery 
 often increases as he approaches the grave. 
 
78 Mind Over Body 
 
 The physician whose cheery, confident pres- 
 ence rivals the sunshine in the sick chamber, 
 secures the patient's affection, but not his 
 recovery, thereby. 
 
 " Mental influences are of demonstrable 
 value, however, in the treatment not of 
 organic, but of functional — that is, emo- 
 tional — disease. This is the field in which 
 mental suggestion — whether called by its 
 proper title, or misnamed Christian Science, 
 faith cure, animal magnetism, Divine healing, 
 hypnotism, or the bone of a saint — does 
 unquestionably cure an occasional patient 
 whom physicians, drugs, and reason have 
 failed to relieve. 
 
 " Physicians include such emotional states 
 under the general term hysteria. Now this 
 word does not mean, as the average layman 
 thinks, merely an alternation of senseless 
 laughter and tears ; nor does it imply, as the 
 average physician thinks, conscious deceit 
 on the part of the hysterical patient. Hys- 
 teria means any functional derangement due 
 to emotion, and displays affections of all parts 
 of the body, such as dyspepsia, paralysis, 
 rigidity of joints, spinal curvature, the trance, 
 even blindness ; and the derangements may 
 be just as honest and real, just as beyond the 
 control of the conscious mind, as are the 
 nausea, faintness, even vomiting, induced in 
 many by a ghastly sight or a disgusting odor. 
 Any influence which will restore the emo- 
 tional balance of such a patient will thereby 
 
Mind Over Body 79 
 
 rapidly cure an hysterical disease, even blind- 
 ness. Physicians, busied with the obvious 
 ravages of organic disease, too often ignore 
 the subtle influence of the emotions ; and 
 their negligence is the opportunity of the 
 charlatan. 
 
 " Though it has been my fortune to see a 
 woman who had suffered the agonies of 
 strangulated hernia and peritonitis for five 
 days under faith-cure treatment, snatched 
 from death by the surgeon's knife ; and to 
 see a horrible ulcer which for six weeks had 
 been eating away the nose of a young matron 
 under Christian Science treatment, promptly 
 arrested and healed by remedies for syphilis ; 
 yet such ignorant — yes, criminal — failures 
 to influence curable organic disease do not in 
 the least argue against the power of mental 
 suggestion over functional disease. That it 
 is the one remedy for disease of emotional 
 origin is exemplified in the following personal 
 observation : — 
 
 " Some years ago an unmarried lady about 
 thirty years of age was afflicted with an ap- 
 parently fatal disease. At the time this 
 observation began she had been bed-ridden 
 for a year ; had become emaciated and too 
 weak even to feed herself ; one leg was partly 
 paralyzed ; for months her eyes had been 
 unable to endure the faintest ray of light. 
 Her room had been kept absolutely dark, and 
 to this dungeon had been admitted only her 
 mother, her nurse, and her physicians, whose 
 
80 Mind Over Body 
 
 skillful ministrations had, however, failed to 
 check her gradual decline. The most exhaust- 
 ive examination failing to reveal any organic 
 disease, an emotional cause for her bodily ail- 
 ment was assumed, although inquiry in her 
 family disclosed no trace of a faithless lover, 
 cruel parent, or other orthodox agency in 
 cardiac fracture. 
 
 "The following plan of treatment was in- 
 stituted : she was told that her ailment was 
 due to sewer-gas, and that her removal to a 
 sanitary dwelling would at once start her on 
 the road to recovery. I may say, incident- 
 ally, that the popular faith in sewer-gas, 
 malaria, and more recently, grippe, as the 
 explanation of all obscure ailments, smooths 
 down many rough places in the path of the 
 physician. 
 
 "Accordingly, on the appointed day, her 
 eyes were thickly bandaged, she was lifted 
 into a closely curtained stretcher, carried 
 carefully to a covered wagon, driven a half- 
 mile to a railway, where a special train, in- 
 cluding a tightly curtained Pullman sleeper, 
 awaited her ; transported in this car to an 
 adjoining suburb, driven in another wagon to 
 her new home, and finally deposited, almost 
 dead from fright and fatigue, in her carefully 
 darkened chamber. 
 
 " The new residence possessed, besides its 
 freedom from sewer gas, two attractive feat- 
 ures ; from its windows were visible on the 
 one side the buildings of the " White City," 
 
Mind Over Body 81 
 
 even then beginning to unfold the glories 
 which later charmed the world ; and on the 
 other side were often displayed, on the person 
 of a young lady neighbor, some of the < swell- 
 est ' gowns in town. The charms of these 
 rival expositions were casually but continually 
 dinned into the ears of the patient, because 
 high in the category of feminine emotions 
 stand curiosity and love of the beautiful. 
 
 " Three weeks after her removal, the lady 
 was sitting at her window, admiring the 
 mighty buildings and criticizing the dry- 
 goods ; and some weeks later she was prom- 
 enading the Fairgrounds and leading the rush 
 line at Field's bargain-counter. 
 
 " Now, what ailed this young woman, and 
 what cured her ? Her disease was plainly a 
 derangement of her physical functions caused 
 by an ungratified instinct, although which of 
 her emotions was the active agent can be 
 even now only conjectured ; indeed, she may 
 herself have been unconscious of its identity. 
 Her recovery would have been ascribed to 
 the drugs administered, to Christian Science, 
 Divine healing, holy relics, or animal magnet- 
 ism, had her physician so proclaimed. It 
 was actually a successful struggle against her 
 ungratified, unidentified instinct, by her other 
 emotions — faith, curiosity, and love of the 
 beautiful — which were aroused to the un- 
 conscious strife by the suggestions of her 
 physician ; and she is to-day a healthy and 
 happy example of the value of mental im- 
 
82 Mind Over Body 
 
 pressions in the treatment of emotional 
 disease." 
 
 Who has not had the experience of stop- 
 ping, by a funny story or some grotesque- 
 ness, a child's crying — and that, too, more 
 or less quickly — over some pretty hard 
 bump that really hurt ? 
 
 With a little child who is not in the habit 
 of crying without cause, I have, by pretending 
 to remove — with a toothpick — something 
 from between the teeth, stopped a crying 
 spell caused by a tooth-ache. True, it was 
 probably not a case of nerve-exposure. 
 
 In my presence a little girl, slightly stung 
 by a bee, ran screaming toward her parents. 
 The mother, a Christian Scientist, was about 
 to hurry the child into the house and " treat " 
 her, but the father interposed and very quickly 
 quieted her with a few words. Had the child 
 gone with the mother, the latter would have 
 claimed a " demonstration " for Christian Sci- 
 ence. It would have been (as was the result 
 of the father's act, and as in the case of the 
 bump, and of the tooth-ache) a demonstration 
 
Mind Over Body 83 
 
 of the pain-alleviating effect of diverting the 
 mind into different channels, but not a proof, 
 for me, of the Christian Science philosophy. 
 
 Last summer I was at San Pedro, California, 
 and while waiting for the boat to start for 
 Avalon, — it was tied to the dock in water 
 absolutely quiet, there was not the slightest 
 motion, — a rosy - cheeked, buxom miss, one 
 of a group of young folk, became seasick 
 and vomited over the boat's rail. A young 
 man, one of the party, started a very enter- 
 taining story, and, as he was a charming 
 story-teller, he had the group interested at 
 once, and the girl's seasickness was dispelled, 
 forgotten. That's just it ! She forgot the 
 notion of seasickness. 
 
 You and I may agree that the thought of 
 seasickness that she had consciously held 
 had worked subconsciously upon her internal 
 organs and produced nausea; and that this 
 had been counteracted by the substitution of 
 another line of thought. But, had a Chris- 
 tian Scientist been the immediate instrument 
 of this cure, at once would have entered our 
 
84 Mind Over Body 
 
 disagreement. You would have claimed that 
 the " demonstration " proved the truth of 
 Christian Science, with all that that implies ; 
 while I claim that there would have been 
 involved no question of the character of the 
 objective universe, the reality of evil, the 
 individuality of the ego, and so forth. 
 
 And I also claim that the manifestation 
 was on a physical plane, the changed state 
 of mind resulting in the normal action of a 
 physical body. 
 
 Though the illustrations I have cited are 
 so commonplace, there enters into all phe- 
 nomena of suggestive therapeutics these same 
 questions of what is involved and what is not 
 involved, and, for me, the same conclusion. 
 
 As I have said in a former letter, we know 
 nothing of the nature of the objective uni- 
 verse. Though the chemist were able to 
 resolve the diamond into one primary ele- 
 ment, he would not know what it is that he 
 then held. We do not need to know. But, 
 that we do not know is not, for me, sufficient 
 reason for denying the reality of the objects 
 
Mind Over Body 85 
 
 of our senses. As reasonable would it be to 
 deny the reality of mind, merely because we 
 are ignorant of its nature, as absolutely as 
 we are of the nature of matter (so-called). 
 
 Nor do we need to know what it is that 
 constitutes mind ; we know only the results 
 of its action. 
 
 We do know that- the thought held con- 
 sciously acts subconsciously on the organs of 
 the body. And we know as little of the 
 actual process of this action as we know of 
 the character of mind or " matter." And the 
 knowledge necessary for us is, not how this 
 action takes place, but that it does occur. 
 
86 Mind Over Body 
 
 X 
 
 .... There is no Death ! . . . 
 
 And every change which we ascribe to Death 
 
 Is but a change in form or state 
 
 Of something which can never cease to live." 
 
 — Wm. H. Uolcombe, in " New Thanatopsis." 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 When it comes to giving consideration to 
 the Christian Scientist's view of death, so- 
 called — (I say "so-called," for "who knows 
 but life be that which men call death, and 
 death what men call life?") — one is con- 
 fronted with the difficult problem of having 
 to determine what the Christian Scientist's 
 position is. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, in Science and Health, writes : 
 "Those who reach this transition called 
 death," and so forth. And, again, in Sci- 
 ence and Health is the suggestion that the 
 greater longevity (Mrs. Eddy's own word) 
 of the race will be the result of the influence 
 
Mind Over Body 87 
 
 of the universal acceptance of Christian Sci- 
 ence. These seem to give validity to the 
 idea of the cessation, at some time, of the 
 phenomenon of the physical manifestation of 
 the individual ego. 
 
 Yet, from your letters and from conversa- 
 tions with Christian Scientists, I find this 
 idea to be abrogated, and the notion of 
 merely increased longevity — through the 
 elimination of disease, because of the spirit- 
 ualization of the race — carried to the ex- 
 tremity of a belief that, through Christian 
 Science, the " transition called death " will 
 be altogether avoided. And it is argued that 
 the spiritual man knows not time ; hence 
 even "old age" (with its accompanying de- 
 cline of the physical powers), being a product 
 of " mortal mind," will no longer be. There- 
 fore, " death " from that cause also is a cir- 
 cumstance inconceivable were the principles 
 enunciated in Science and Health to dominate 
 absolutely. 
 
 I can conceive of one being in such a state 
 of rapture — consequent upon his complete 
 
88 Mind Over Body 
 
 absorption in something that intensely inter- 
 ests him, such as religion, a book, the carry- 
 ing a new line of thought to its conclusion, 
 and so forth — as to be absolutely oblivious 
 to all discomforts, ordinary or extreme. 
 
 I can even conceive of this state of mind 
 being so continuously prolonged that he can ex- 
 perience the "transition called death " without 
 even being conscious of it. But, that this 
 transition will not come, — through starva- 
 tion, freezing, asphyxiation, loss of blood, and 
 so forth, — even though his mental exaltation 
 be one of complete spirituality, it is not neces- 
 sary, to me, to be believed. 
 
 Similarly, for me, it is not inharmonious 
 with the Divine plan that man (as we know 
 him on the physical plane), — though his life 
 approach consonance with spiritual law, and 
 increasingly so as his years progress ; and 
 though he ignore the element of time, having 
 reached his three score years and ten — or 
 a Methuselan age, as the case may be — 
 shall "wrap the drapery of his couch about 
 him and lie down to pleasant dreams." 
 
Mind Over Body 89 
 
 And, though man be "cut off" prema- 
 turely by accident* or by disease, these are 
 manifestations of the action of forces emanat- 
 ing from the spiritual, and, for me, are not 
 evil. 
 
 Surely, the Christian Scientist ought to 
 agree that these seeming evils are at any rate 
 not irreparable, since Mrs. Eddy says, in 
 Science and Health, " Those who reach 
 this transition called death, without having 
 rightly improved the lessons of this primary 
 school of mortal existence . . . awake only 
 to another sphere of experience and must 
 pass through another probationary state." 
 
 With this statement in mind, why such an 
 intense desire on the part of the Christian 
 Scientist to keep himself, or others, indef- 
 initely " in the flesh " ? Why such a pre- 
 ponderating consideration of the maintenance 
 of a physical body, — a consideration carried 
 to such an extent among your devotees as 
 to take precedence, to a great degree, of the 
 
 * There is no such thing as accident, but let that pass, 
 here. 
 
90 Mind Over Body 
 
 contemplation of things spiritual? The re- 
 sult of this has been that Christian Science 
 has come to be looked upon as, primarily, a 
 system of therapeutics. In support of this 
 last assertion I point to the fact that it is 
 almost always to physical cures that attention 
 of unbelievers in Christian Science is called ; 
 and that it is through physical cures that you 
 seek to — and do — gain proselytes. 
 
 Why this consuming interest in the pre- 
 vention of the "death" of the body, when 
 it is possible — if one has real confidence in 
 God — to have faith that " real being cannot 
 die ; that the very fact of life, in any form, 
 means the continuance of life even though 
 the form be changed " * ; and that there is 
 "another probationary state," f and so forth ? 
 
 You will reply that it is because wrong 
 mental condition — and, back of that, an 
 ignorance of spiritual law — is manifested in 
 a diseased body, that you are so interested in 
 the cure of disease. 
 
 Not from Mrs. Eddy. t From Mrs. Eddy. 
 
Mind Over Body 91 
 
 I agree — nay, I assert — that fear, hate, 
 envy, jealously, anger — forms of selfishness, 
 all — disturb the normal action of the func- 
 tions of the body, resulting in disorder. And 
 I also agree, and assert, that the substitution 
 of the opposites of these malign emotions 
 — in other words, unselfishness, love — tends 
 to correct such disorder as these formerly 
 dominating influences caused. 
 
 This is Christian Science, you say ? But, 
 certain qualifications upon which I place con- 
 siderable emphasis mark the difference be- 
 tween your position and mine : — 
 
 First : — Such conditions as result from fear, 
 hate, and so forth, are not evil but good, in 
 that they serve to show that the realization 
 of the true spiritual state does not prevail. 
 
 Second : — The result of the changed mental 
 state is an orderly resumption of the functions 
 of the organs of a physical body, upon which 
 you look (as you do on all things physical) as 
 a product of "mortal mind," evil.* "What 
 
 * In the New York Herald, December 6, 1908, Mr. 
 Alfred Farlow, of Boston (general manager of the Chris- 
 
92 Mind Over Body 
 
 God has cleansed, call thou not common or 
 unclean." 
 
 Third : — Though this principle (that love 
 will correct what selfishness has caused) 
 come to absolutely dominate the conscious- 
 ness of the race, yet shall the "transition 
 called death" never be avoided, ultimately. 
 The result will be merely a greater individual 
 and racial longevity. 
 
 Fourth (and one of the most important) : — 
 
 tian Science Committee on Publication), takes issue as 
 follows with Bishop Fallows, of Chicago, on the position 
 the latter takes, similar to the above : 
 
 " Christian Science affirms . . . that when mortals be- 
 come fully conscious of the spiritual truth of being, the 
 body will manifest perfect harmony — i. e., it will be a per- 
 fect expression of the perfect Mind, God." 
 
 How can you, or Mr. Farlow, reconcile this assertion 
 with the following from Science and Health? — 
 
 " Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness of divin- 
 ity, though mortal mind would fain have us so believe " 
 (p. 302). 
 
 "... the body is the substratum of mortal mind " (p. 
 37i)- 
 
 " Mortal mind and body are one. . . . Matter, or body, 
 is but a false concept of mortal mind. This so-called mind 
 builds its own superstructure, of which the material body 
 is the grosser part ; but from first to last, the body is a 
 sensuous, human concept" (p. 177). 
 
Mind Over Body 93 
 
 The disorder caused by a cinder in the eye 
 is not to be accounted for as resulting from 
 fear, hate, envy, and so forth, though these 
 may, and doubtless do, aggravate it. And 
 such disorder will be corrected only by the 
 removal of the cinder ; and for this purpose 
 I was given a physical hand. And, to my 
 mind, the unsolved question is to be able 
 to distinguish between such diseases as are 
 caused by wrong mental states, and those 
 that are analogous to the cinder in the eye ; 
 which illustration I have used merely as a 
 type of disorder-producing foreign substances 
 in the human mechanism. 
 
94 Mind Over Body 
 
 XI 
 
 There is a new strange song in the air." 
 
 — Lathbury 
 
 Denver, Colo., 
 Dear ; 
 
 The tendency of the last fifty years — more 
 or less — has been materialistic ; has been to 
 give too great importance to the physical, to 
 the things of the world ; manifesting itself in- 
 creasingly in lust for fame, for power, for 
 position, for wealth. Things spiritual have 
 come to be minimized, to be almost ignored, 
 their consideration having become, too gener- 
 ally, the merest formalism. "There is a new 
 strange song in the air." A reaction, like 
 to that of Puritanism following the licentious- 
 ness of the upper classes in England, has set 
 in. Along sociological lines it has taken the 
 form of altruism, a feeling of brotherhood, 
 a desire to establish the relations between 
 man and man on a nearer just basis. This 
 
Mind Over Body 95 
 
 of itself is a religious expression. But, along 
 more distinctly religious lines, this reaction 
 has manifested itself in many ways ; among 
 them, Christian Science, and so forth. 
 
 That the tendency has been to invert the 
 real relation between the spiritual and the 
 physical is no justification for repudiating the 
 latter altogether ; especially since, to my way 
 of thinking, the latter is an expression of the 
 former. 
 
 A realization of the relative values of 
 spiritual things and the things of the world 
 — both kept on their proper plane ; the 
 latter, though having their legitimate impor- 
 tance, always subordinated to the former — 
 will result in an equipoise that will prevent 
 the reaction from ultra-materialism to a 
 reasonless idealism. And I do not believe 
 that with you the latter position would have 
 been acceptable, did it not seem to be sup- 
 ported by phenomena (physical, though you 
 have lost sight of that fact) that seem to 
 you otherwise inexplicable. 
 
g6 Mind Over Body 
 
 Have you ever read George Macdonald's 
 fairy story, The Giant's Heart ? The little 
 girl's song to the mother-lark is so apro- 
 pos of the risk of so seeking God only 
 in the spiritual, as to ignore His presence 
 in " the mud and scum of things," that I 
 quote part of it : — 
 
 The father-lark, soaring up, and up, and 
 always up, to meet the sun (the King), yet 
 unable to find him because of an obscuring 
 cloud, returns to the nest where he had left 
 his wife alone in the morning. 
 
 " Did I say alone ? Ah, no such thing ! 
 Full in her face was shining the King. 
 
 *■ Welcome, Sir Lark ! You look tired,' said he, 
 
 ' Up is not always the best way to me. 
 While you have been singing so high and away, 
 I 've been shining to your little wife all day.'" 
 
 In the same song is the reproof, when the 
 lark seeks the approval of the sun : — 
 
 " ' Must I thank you, then,' said the King, • Sir Lark, 
 For flying so high and hating the dark ? 
 You ask a full cup for half a thirst ; 
 Half is love of me, and half love to be first.' . . . 
 And the King hid his head in a turban of cloud, 
 And the lark stopped singing, quite vexed and cowed." 
 
Mind Over Body 97 
 
 How suggestive of the necessity for care- 
 fully analyzing our motive, before offering to 
 others our ideas ; and of the advisability of 
 finding out how much se/f-gratifi cation is 
 involved because our ideas are ours. 
 
 Suggestion ! — the most potent force in 
 man's experience in the flesh ! " One dis- 
 piriting word does more than chill ; it is a 
 derelict afloat, a dagger-thrust at the divine 
 scheme. Every bright word, like every pleas- 
 ant air of music, is pleasure in action ; it is 
 virtue and goodness at play. The soul near- 
 est us catches the contagion and goes its 
 rejoicing way." 
 
 Who can read a Daniel Deronda, or any 
 novel of high purpose, without a spiritual 
 uplift ? Or the biography of a noble man ? 
 " Lives of great men all remind us we can 
 make our lives sublime." 
 
 " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
 whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
 
98 Mind Over Body 
 
 report ; if there be any virtue, and if there 
 be any praise, think of these things." To 
 him that will observe this injunction will 
 come "the peace of God which passeth all 
 understanding." 
 
 Clarence Lathbury, in The Balanced Life, 
 very beautifully expresses this thought : — 
 
 " Wisdom is the mind's health and poise, 
 as love is the health of the heart. Wisdom 
 is to the mind what proportion is to the 
 body ; it is that wholesome quality which 
 lends thought, sanity, and music, as the wood 
 and strings of some priceless Stradivarius are 
 made to sound divinely under the hand of 
 the master. . . . Like the sweetness of the 
 summer day, it is something to be experi- 
 enced rather than denned. It is not learn- 
 ing, nor is it knowledge ; but just wisdom 
 past comprehending, shining in the heart of 
 humble folk and little children. It is a 
 psychologic peace imbued with cheerfulness 
 and strength, a sort of effluence of mental 
 bloom. It breathes a holy impartiality, hav- 
 ing found that golden mean where error and 
 excess are purged away." 
 
 But, as he also says : — 
 
 " The body should have full reverence and 
 the complete satisfaction of its God-given 
 
Mind Over Body 99 
 
 appetities, for in its place it is as holy as the 
 spirit ; we should listen to its varied claims 
 without giving it rein. Let us take the risk 
 of living while we may ; let us wade deep 
 into the tide of being; . . . every bit of 
 deep true living is just so much more of the 
 dear old world built into the mansion of the 
 soul. 
 
 " How beautiful it is to live to make the 
 world happy. Let the song never die away, 
 and the dance never cease ; let laughter flow 
 like melodious waters singing to the sea." 
 
ioo Mind Over Body 
 
 (From Emerson's Self -Reliance.) 
 
 " Everywhere I am bereaved of meeting God 
 in my brother, because he has shut his own 
 temple doors and recites fables merely of 
 his brother's or his brother's brother's God. 
 Every mind is a new classification. If it prove 
 a mind of uncommon activity and power, a 
 Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a 
 Spurzheim, it imposes its classification on 
 other men, and lo ! a new system. In pro- 
 portion always to the depth of the thought, 
 and so to the number of the objects it touches 
 and brings within reach of the pupil, is his 
 complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in 
 creeds and churches, which are also classifica- 
 tions of some powerful mind acting on the 
 great elemental thought of Duty and man's 
 relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, 
 Quakerism, Swedenborgianww. The pupil 
 takes the same delight in subordinating every- 
 thing to the new terminology that a girl does 
 who has just learned botany, in seeing a new 
 earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen 
 for a time that the pupil will feel a real debt 
 to the teacher — will find his intellectual power 
 has grown by the study of his writings. This 
 will continue until he has exhausted his mas- 
 ter's mind. But in all unbalanced minds the 
 classification is idolized, passes for the end 
 
Mind Over Body 161 
 
 and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so 
 that the walls of the system blend to their 
 eye in the remote horizon with the walls of 
 the universe ; the luminaries of heaven seem 
 to them hung on the arch their master built. 
 They cannot imagine how you aliens have any 
 right to see — how you can see : ' It must 
 be somehow that you stole the light from us.' 
 They do not yet perceive that light unsystem- 
 atic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, 
 even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and 
 call it their own. If they are honest and do 
 well, presently their neat new pinfold will be 
 too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot 
 and vanish, and the immortal light, all young 
 and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will 
 beam over the universe as on the first 
 morning." 
 
102 Mind Over Body 
 
 The Parable of the Elephant 
 (from the Chinese). 
 
 " There was a noble and mighty elephant, an 
 elephant white in color, with a strong trunk 
 and long tusks, trained by a good master, and 
 willing and serviceable in all the work that 
 elephants are put to. And this noble and 
 mighty elephant, being led by his guide, the 
 good master who had trained him, came to 
 the land of the blind. And it was noised 
 about in the land of the blind that the noble 
 and mighty elephant, the king of all beasts, 
 the wisest of all animals, the strongest and 
 yet the meekest and kindliest of creatures, 
 had made his appearance in their country. 
 So the wise men and teachers of the blind 
 came to the place where the elephant was, 
 and every one began to investigate his shape 
 and figure and form. And when the elephant 
 was gone they met and discussed the problem 
 of the noble and mighty beast, and there were 
 some who said he was like a great thick snake ; 
 others said he was like a snake of medium 
 size. The former had felt of the trunk, the 
 latter of the tail. Further, there were some 
 who claimed that his figure was like that of a 
 high column ; others declared he was large 
 and bulky, like a big barrel ; still others main- 
 tained that he was smooth and hard, but taper- 
 
Mind Over Body 103 
 
 ing. Some of the blind had taken hold of one 
 of the legs ; others had reached the main 
 body ; and still others had touched the tusks. 
 Every one proposed his view, and they dis- 
 puted and controverted, and wrangled, and 
 litigated, and bickered, and quarreled, and 
 called each other names, and each one impre- 
 cated all the others, and each one denounced 
 all the others, and they abused and scolded, 
 and they anathematized and excommunicated, 
 and finally every one of them swore that every 
 one else was a liar and cursed on account of 
 his heresies. These blind men, every one of 
 them honest in his contentions, being sure 
 of having the truth and relying upon his own 
 experience, formed schools and sects and fac- 
 tions, and behaved in exactly the same way 
 as you see the priests of the different creeds 
 behave. But the master of the noble, mighty 
 elephant knows them all ; he knows that every 
 one of them has a parcel of the truth, that 
 every one is right in his way, but wrong in 
 taking his parcel to be the whole truth. 
 
 " Not one of these sectarians observed the 
 fact that the elephant was perfectly white, 
 and a marvel to see, for all of them were pur- 
 blind. Yet I would not say that they were 
 either dishonest or hypocrites. They had 
 investigated the truth to the best of their 
 ability. 
 
 " The master of the elephant is the Tatha- 
 gata, the Enlightened One, the Buddha. He 
 
104 Mind Over Body 
 
 has brought the white elephant, symbolizing 
 strength and wisdom and devotion, into the 
 land of the blind ; and he who listens to the 
 Tathagata will understand all the schools, and 
 all the sects, and all the factions that are in 
 possession of parcels of the truth. His doc- 
 trine is all-comprehensive, and he who takes 
 refuge in Him will cease to bicker and to 
 contend and to quarrel." 
 
 — Translated by Paid Carus. 
 
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