Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/251

From the study of Quimby's theory, as given in chapter iii, and the foregoing statement of Mrs. Glover's more elaborate system, as contained in Science and Health, it will be seen that Quimby's “science of man,” as he tried to teach and practise it, was simply a new way of applying an old truth; and that Mrs. Glover, in the process of making Quimby's idea her own, merely added to it certain abnormalities, which, if universally believed and practised, would make of Christian Science the revolt of a species against its own physical structure; against its relation to its natural physical environment; against the needs of its own physical organism, and against the perpetuation of its kind. But in spite of the radical doctrines laid down in Science and Health, neither Mrs. Glover nor her followers attempted to practise them in their daily lives; nor do they do so now. In relation to their physical existence and surroundings, Mrs. Eddy and all Christian Scientists live exactly as other people do; and while they write and teach that physical conditions should be ignored, and the seeming life of the material world denied, they daily recognise their own mortality, and have a very lively sense of worldly thrift and prosperity. Mrs. Eddy's philosophy makes a double appeal to human nature, offering food both to our inherent craving for the mystical and to our desire to do well in a worldly way, and teaching that these extremes are not incompatible in “science.” Indeed, as one of the inducements offered to purchasers of the first edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Glover advertised it as a book that “affords opportunity to acquire a profession by which you can accumulate a fortune,” and in the book itself she said that “Men of business have said this science