But how could she perform the latter miracle against the opinion held by the majority that shortened limbs cannot be elongated, and after admitting, as she does, that in the sick chamber "the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, and not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions"? In her attempt to answer the question, why Christian Science fails to cure the patient who has accidentally swallowed a deadly drug, Mrs. Eddy strips her "discovery" of all its power to heal and makes "the majority of opinions the controlling factor." In one and the same breath she announces the supremacy of Infinite Mind, "who never endowed matter with power to disable life, or to chill harmony......since such a power without the Divine permission is inconceivable," and admits the helplessness of this "Infinite Mind" against "the majority of opinions dictated by mortal mind." And the same woman writes: "In this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements" (p. 345). Christian Science Cures |It is urged, however, that Mrs. Eddy's teachings have been demonstrated to be true by the remarkable cures they have effected. I need not question these cures. I hope all of them are genuine. I love humanity too well to wish that its ills were not cured at all rather than that they should be cured by Christian Science. But when every claim is conceded, all that will be proved is that Christian Science has cured some sick people. Of course it has. I hope the Christian Scientists will be equally generous to admit that during the past thousands of years cures have been effected also by other agencies. Mohammedanism has cured the sick; Catholic saints have cured the sick; holy places have performed cures--else why do multitudes go on pilgrimages to shrines? Patent medicines have helped the sick, otherwise the inventors and vendors of them could not have made such big fortunes; and the least tolerant Christian Scientist must admit that even physicians occasionally succeed in curing the sick. Evidently, then, Mrs. Eddy is not the _only_ healer; which, if admitted, will prove that she has not performed any cures with her "ism" which others have not performed without it. If it be said that other cures are cures only in name, the same is said by unbelievers of Christian Science cures. One objection balances the other. Christian Science would be unique if it never failed to cure. But as it fails in some cases from one cause or another, and as it limits its practice to complaints which do not require a knowledge of surgery, and, again, _as it has never accomplished what the other agencies have failed to accomplish_--restoring a lost limb, for instance--it follows without the possibility of contradiction that it is at its best no more than any other human agency.