Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/229

Rh that low lusts should be supplanted by high aspirations and not at all that all desire should be stifled.

Many minds have discerned the oppressive atmosphere of Christian Science which such a kind of self-denial creates,—like the night already too dark made heavier and colder by a cloud distinctly felt if not clearly seen. Some have explained it as a Stoical element in Christian Science; but it seems that it does not come from Stoicism. Some think they detect an element of Buddhism in Christian Science and it seems that they are right in so thinking. The doctrine of the extinction of desire is original in and characteristic of Buddhism. Nirvana, the Buddhist's heaven, is attained when desire dies out of the soul. Buddha and Mrs. Eddy would get us to heaven by killing us. For when all desire is dead the person is dead. They would treat us as the economical master treated his mule. He taught him how to live on one straw a day but, to his owner's disappointment, so soon as he had acquired the habit he died.

Since we find the same extinction of desire taught in Neoplatonism and since Christian Science as a system is derived therefrom and since it has its logical place in both systems; the more plausible conclusion is that this ethical speculation came to Mrs. Eddy also through Neoplatonism.