Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/110

102 God is perfect, the phenomena or the world must be perfect. With Mrs. Eddy and the Neoplatonists the real, the eternal, and the perfect are the same. Imperfection is simply the absence of reality. It may be that the student has already noticed in the quotations from Mrs. Eddy how she in speaking of the world often applies to it both the adjectives, perfect and eternal. This is natural, inasmuch as in her conception what is real is both perfect and eternal and so one adjective implies the other. All this is revealed in the following sentence: “All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection nothing is wholly real.”

As to the perfection of the world Mrs. Eddy says: “God created all through Mind and made all perfect and eternal;” “God's thoughts are perfect and eternal ;” “Whatever is valueless or baneful. He did not make, — hence its unreality.”

Turn now to the Neoplatonists. Plotinus says: “If we apply the ears of our intellect to the world we shall, perhaps, hear it thus addressing us: ‘There is no doubt but I was produced by divinity, from whence I am formed perfect&emsp;*&emsp;*&emsp;*&emsp;entirely sufficient to myself, and destitute of nothing;’ ” “The universe, however, was never once a child so as to be imperfect.” Spinoza