nces which have not learned
that the natural, when all the meaning of it is set free, blossoms into
the spiritual like the tree into flower. Religion and philosophy and
science also have yet to learn more fully that all which can possibly
concern man, occupy his intelligence or engage his will, lies at the
point of intersection of the natural and spiritual."--"A Faith that
Enquires," p. 27.]

Christian Science breaks down both philosophically and practically just
here. It is none the less a dualism because it denies that it is. It
confronts not one but two ranges of reality; it gains nothing by making
mortal mind the villain in the play. It is compelled to admit the
existence of the reality which it denies, even in the fact of denying
it. What we deny exists for us--we could not otherwise deny it. Royce
has put all this clearly, strongly, finally. "The mystic first denies
that evil is real. He is asked why, then, evil seems to exist. He
replies that this is our finite error. The finite error itself hereupon
becomes, as the source of all our woes, an evil. But no evil is real,
hence no error can be real, hence we do not really err even if we
suppose that evil is real. Here we return to our starting point and
could only hope to escape by asserting that it is an error to assert
that we really err or that we really believe error to be real, and with
a process thus begun there is indeed no end, nor at any stage in this
process is there consistency."[40] All this is subtle enough, but if we
are to make our world by thinking and unthinking it, all this is
unescapably true.

[Footnote 40: "The World and the Individual," Vol. II, p. 394.]

When, moreover, you have reduced one range of experience to illusion
there is absolutely nothing to save the rest. If evil is error and error
evil and the belief that evil is an illusion is itself an illusion what
is there to guarantee the reality of good? The sword with which Mrs.
Eddy cut the knot of the problem of evil is two-edged. If the optimist
denies evil for the sake of good and points for proof to the solid
coherency of the happier side of life, the pessimist may as justly deny
good for the sake of evil and point for proof to the solid coherency of
the sadder side of life; he will have no trouble in finding his facts.
If sickness is a dream then health is a dream as well. Once we have
taken illusion for a guide there is no stopping until everything is
illusion. The Eastern mystic