SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 285 



why not garden weeds, and tigers too ? If a burn 

 is only imaginary, why not sit on a bonfire at once ? 

 If poisons do not poison, why not flavour milk with 

 prussic acid ? 



Indeed, the views of Christian Science are so 

 absurd that failure to see their absurdity certainly 

 implies mental deficiency, and we cannot here under- 

 take to try to enlighten the mentally deficient. It 

 would be easy to show to the ordinary sane man 

 the practical dangers of Christian Scientist teaching, 

 which have already been painfully and tragically 

 demonstrated in the police courts ; it would be 

 easy to show to the healthy-minded man that the 

 denial of pain and disease empties the world of 

 half its nobility and heroism ; it would be easy 

 to prove that the statements of cures made by 

 Christian Science are wholly untrustworthy, and 

 that most Christian Scientists belong to stock 

 neurotic and mentally unstable ; but such demon- 

 stration must be superfluous, for no clear-headed 

 man is at all likely to be duped by Christian Science, 

 and the muddle-headed who are duped are incap- 

 able of reasoning. 



What we wish to do here is not to demonstrate 

 the folly of the most cowardly and vulgar religion 

 ever preached, but merely to point out the very 

 interesting fact that the mind able to believe such 

 muddy inconsistencies is really a case of reversion 



