s an impossible task for an ordinary intelligence;
then, again, it were labor lost, for even if one did get down far
enough one could get nothing satisfactory out of it. The force of
Eddyism lies in its being mysterious, incomprehensible and
contradictory. These qualities would kill an ordinary system, but this
is no ordinary system. The only way to beat the Christian Scientist is
to invite him to focus all the energy of his mind on a vulgar lamp-post
and engrave thereon the name of the revered Eddy--this to show the
power of mind. Then to prove the non-existence of matter, ask him to
consent to your endeavoring to make a material impression on his head
with an immaterial hammer.

Of course this is not what he meant; but what he did mean will become
by no means clearer after the wearisome, interminable lengths to which
he will go to elucidate. The fact is that he does not know it himself,
and no one can give what he does not possess. True philosophy tells us
to define terms and never to employ expressions of more than one
meaning without saying in what sense we use them. Contempt of this rule
is the salvation of Christian Science, and that is where we lose.

Yet there is something in this fad after all. Total insanity is never
met with outside state institutions, and these people are at large. The
ravings of a delirious patient are often a monstrous mass of wild
absurdities; but, if you question the patient when convalescent, you
will sometimes be surprised to find they were all founded on facts
which had become exaggerated and distorted. There is no such thing as
pure unadulterated error. All of which is meant to convey the idea that
at the bottom of all fraud and falsehood there is some truth, and the
malice of error is always proportionate with the amount of truth it has
perverted.

The first truth that has been exaggerated beyond recognition is this,
that a large proportion of human diseases are pure fiction of morbid
imaginations, induced by the power of the mind. That such is the case,
all medical men admit. Thus, the mind may often be used as a
therapeutic agent, and clever physicians never fail to employ this kind
of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy is therefore no more the discoverer of
the "malade imaginaire" than Moliere. When you' distort this truth and
write books proclaiming the fact that all ills are of this sort, then
you have Eddyism up to date. Mrs. Eddy gathers her skirts in her hand
and leaps over the