Key to the Scriptures," by Mrs. Eddy, was put into her
hands. While attempting to read it in a hopeless, helpless spirit, she
was instantly cured--that is, the idea that she was well took possession
of her, and not long after she really was so. She threw all her
medicines, of which there was quite a store, into the garbage pail,
eschewed doctors, began to read the Christian Science literature, and
attend the Christian Science church nearest her apartment, and was soon
involved in its subtle metaphysical interpretation of mortal life. Into
this faith, her husband, who loved her very much, had followed, for what
was good enough for her and would cure her was good enough for him. He
soon seized on its spiritual significance with great vigor and became,
if anything, a better exponent and interpreter of the significant
thought than was she herself.

Those who know anything of Christian Science know that its main tenet is
that God is a principle, not a personality understandable or conceivable
from the mortal or sensory side of life (which latter is an illusion),
and that man (spiritually speaking) in His image and likeness. Man is
not God or any part of Him. He is an idea in God, and, as such, as
perfect and indestructible and undisturbably harmonious as an idea in
God or principle must be. To those not metaphysically inclined, this is
usually dark and without significance, but to those spiritually or
metaphysically minded it comes as a great light. Matter becomes a
built-up set or combination of illusions, which may have evolved or not
as one chooses, but which unquestionably have been built up from nothing
or an invisible, intangible idea, and have no significance beyond the
faith or credence, which those who are at base spiritual give them. Deny
them--know them to be what they are--and they are gone.

To Eugene, who at this time was in a great state of mental
doldrums--blue, dispirited, disheartened, inclined to see only evil and
destructive forces--this might well come with peculiar significance, if
it came at all. He was one of those men who from their birth are
metaphysically inclined. All his life he had been speculating on the
subtleties of mortal existence, reading Spencer, Kant, Spinoza, at odd
moments, and particularly such men as Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lord
Avebury, Alfred Russel Wallace, and latterly Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir
William Crookes, trying to find out by the inductive, naturalistic
method just what