Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/217

Rh hold that there is harmony in the universe considered in its entirety. Sin or evil must be either discord in the universe or be no part of it. Since it cannot be the former, it follows that sin has no place in the universe. This is the same as saying it is the absence of reality.

Mrs. Eddy says: “Since God is All, there is no room for his unlikeness. God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it good. Therefore evil, being contrary to good, is unreal, and cannot be the product of God;” “Evil is nothing, no thing. Mind, nor power.”

This theory has its roots in the Platonic doctrine of ideas. The world of ideas constitutes the world of reality and in this world there is no discord. Since therefore evil is not in the world of reality it is unreal. Plotinus so reasons concerning the Platonic world of ideas. He says: “There is no paradigm of evil there (world of ideas). For evil here (in the world of sense) happens from indigence, privation, and defect.” The thought is that in the world of ideas which the Neoplatonists consider the realm of the divine mind, there is no principle of evil; but evil is simply the lack of such divine mind. To that degree to which one partakes of the divine mind or has understanding he has reality or is good; in so far as he comes short of it he lacks reality or is evil. Again Plotinus says: “Evil and depravity