of physical functionings, and the
oxidation of waste materials real as fire on a hearth, but that is no
reason why such ignorance should be continued from generation to
generation.

_The Power of Mental Environment_

In general, Christian Science practice as indicated in "Science and
Health" is a strange mingling of the true, the assumed and the false;
its assumptions are backed up by selected illustrations and all that
challenges it is ignored. Disease is unreal because Mind is not sick and
matter cannot be (page 393). But Mind is "the only I, or Us, divine
Principle, ... Life, Truth, Love; Deity, which outlines but is not
outlined" (page 591). In other words Mind is an ideal affirmation which
Mrs. Eddy assumes to underlie human experience and possibly to reveal
itself through human experience, and it certainly does not follow that
while an ideal affirmation is not sick, a human being involved in the
necessary relationships of our present material existence may not be.
Mrs. Eddy never clearly distinguishes between what a speculative mind
may affirm and actual experience report. Her dialectic is a constant
wrestling with reality in a range of statement which involves her in
many contradictions. She recognizes what she denies and denies what she
recognizes and, in a lawyer's phrase, constantly changes the venue.

But through and behind it all is an intelligible method. Confidence is
to be reestablished, fear is allayed, the sufferer from error led to
commit himself to healing forces. These healing forces are not
consistently defined. Sometimes they are the "power of the mind to
sustain the body" (page 417); sometimes "the power of Christian Science"
(page 412), or "the power of Truth" (page 420) or divine Spirit, or her
book itself. "Continue to read and the book will become the physician,
allaying the tremor which Truth often brings to error when destroying
it" (page 422).

Mrs. Eddy sometimes anticipates in a vague way the reaction of thought
and emotion upon physiological function to which Cannon has given such
careful attention, but her definite statements are strangely inadequate.
"What I term _chemicalization_ is the upheaval produced when immortal
Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization
brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away,
as is the case with a fermenting fluid" (page 401).[57] She recognizes
the limits of Christian Science practice when she ad