Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/139

Rh It is not affirmed here that Mrs. Eddy's explanation of the fall is derived from Hegel's or is the same in detail as his, but only that it is suggestive of his. But since Mrs. Eddy reproduces the naturalistic trinity, as will be proved, which is used by Hegel to explain the fall, it is proper to point out that Mrs. Eddy comes very close at this point to, if indeed she does not step in, the tracks of this great idealist, who owed no small debt to the Neoplatonists. The three words of Hegel referred to, correspond to three words of the Neoplatonists, intellect, intelligible, and intelligence, or the subject knowing, the object known and the act of knowing, by virtue of which the subject and object are united and become in reality one. All this is quite natural in an idealistic system. Mrs. Eddy has the same conceptions but couched in words better suited to her purpose, as we shall see.

As Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of Jesus Christ is that he was only a human being or, what amounts to the same thing, that he was divine as all men are, that is, that he possessed a nature the same in kind with ours, though in character he reached a degree of perfection above us, it is proper in this connection to show the source of her revelations on this subject. In Christian Science the treatment of Jesus Christ belongs to anthropology rather than theology.

Briefly stated her doctrine is as follows. Christ is the ideal man; or he is the true idea of God, as any man is when all material or mortal