Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/173

Rh is a superior hypostasis to soul there is the highest or third kind of knowledge and only this. In soul, as such, there is discursive reason or ratiocination and only this. But in a soul which is related to finite body and limited by it, we have the inferior activities that constitute the first kind of knowledge. Now since Mrs. Eddy does not recognize soul as something other than mind but posits only one hypostasis, designated as mind or soul or by some synonym for them, she has only two general classes of knowledge. Discursive reason since it is a mental process in which the element of time enters she must class with the lower kind of knowledge. The knowledge of “immortal Mind” or real knowledge with Mrs. Eddy corresponds exactly to the highest or third kind of knowledge of the Neoplatonists. It is intuitive knowledge or intellectual knowledge. All lower forms of knowledge constitute the class of unreal knowledge. They are activities of mortal mind which does not exist. With Mrs. Eddy there are no grades in knowledge. If one has knowledge he has perfect knowledge. Notwithstanding this great divergence from the Neoplatonists in metaphysics, Mrs. Eddy follows them closely in psychology. Spinoza too had the Neoplatonic theory of knowledge but was a dichotomist. So when we find that they are beholden to the Neoplatonists for their psychology, their slavery to them is the more certainly demonstrated.

But before proceeding further I wish to remark that this want of a metaphysical basis for