ascribed to the soul certain mental activities which Mrs. Eddy discards as belonging to the realm of the unreal. We find soul in her terminology but it is, she says, a synonym for mind.[1] The real man is simply mind.
Now does Mrs. Eddy mean by mind the same
as the Neoplatonists mean by mind or nous? In
eliminating physical qualities from the real man
does Mrs. Eddy substract from man as he is
commonly conceived as much as the Neoplatonists
would have done had they eliminated both physical
and psychical qualities, leaving only the
intellectual? To these questions, striking as it really
is, the answer is, yes. By mind Mrs. Eddy means
not sensation, not opinion, not memory, not
discursive reason, but intellect or intuitive consciousness;
and this is exactly what the Neoplatonists
mean by nous or the highest of the three component
parts of human nature. Keeping in mind this
one point of difference between the two systems,
the similarities will become too numerous to
mention.
It will be seen therefore that in Christian Science anthropology means little more than psychology.
Accordingly, in this chapter, we need to review only the more general aspects of human nature. The deeper and more intricate questions are reserved for the chapters on Psychology and Ethics. In this chapter it is appropriate to dis-
- ↑ Cf. S. and H. p. 115.
