Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/551

This page has been validated.
APPENDIX B
491

This is the great Positive Power." He compares his system to a wheel, the centre of which "is a Focus for the universal diffusion of knowledge, Truth, and the one unchangeable Principle." "Truth," he states, "is positive Principle; error is a negative principle, and as Truth is positive and eternal, it must subdue error, which is only temporal and artificial."

This Positive Mind he also calls Divine Intelligence, the First Cause, etc. He says: "Power, Wisdom, Goodness, Justice, Mercy, Truth, are the gradual developments of an eternal and internal Principle, constituting the Divine, original Essence!"

Disease, in the Davis philosophy, is not a part of the "Great Harmonia." His conclusions as to disease are:

"That disease is discord; and that this disease originates in a want of equilibrium in the circulation of the spiritual Principle throughout the organism.

"That the spiritual Principle is an organisation of refined and sublimated materials; consequently, being material, it is susceptible to material influences.

"That those physical developments which are called diseases, are simply evidences of constitutional or spiritual disturbances; and consequently, that there is but one 'disease,' having innumerable symptoms."

The mission of the physician, Davis says, is not to the body, "for the body is but a subordinate portion of the individual." "Disease is an effect, not a cause." "Disease is an evil to be prevented; it is an effect to be overcome. Physicians are designed to minister to the spiritual principle." "Man is a Unit," he says again. "It is not true that he has a body to be cured of disease separate from his mind."