Page:Retrospection and Introspection.djvu/87



HE various forms of book-borrowing without credit spring from this ill-concealed question in mortal mind, Who shall be greatest? This error violates the law given by Moses, it tramples upon Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, it does violence to the ethics of Christian Science.

Why withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, but give credit when citing from the works of other authors?

Life and its ideals are inseparable, and one's writings on ethics, and demonstration of Truth, are not, cannot be, understood or taught by those who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the author. Jesus said, “For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.”

If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the borrower from it is embraced in the author's own mental mood, and is therefore honest. The Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity.

It is proverbial that dishonesty retards spiritual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook written by his teacher, is he entitled, when he leaves the University, to write out as his own the substance of this textbook? There is no warrant in common law and no permission in the gospel