body of affirmation,
persuasion, assumption, suggestion and technique of Christian Science is
directed. As one tries to analyze these separate elements they are,
taken singly, inconsistent, often unverifiable and often enough, by any
tests at all save the tests of Christian Science, positively untrue. But
as Mrs. Eddy has combined them and as they are applied in practice they
do possess an undeniable power. They are not dependent, as has been
said, fundamentally upon persons or things or places. Here is a coherent
system, the force of which may be felt when it is not understood and it
bears upon the perplexed or the impressionable with very great power. It
would be appreciably weakened if any one of its constituent elements
were taken out of it. But fundamentally it can do no more than any other
system of suggestion, unquestionably accepted, can do.

_It is Bound to be Affected by Our Growing Understanding of the Ranges
of Suggestion_

A deal of water has gone under the bridge since Mary Baker Eddy began
her work. What was then almost wholly involved in mystery is now
beginning to be reduced to law. The psychology of suggestion is by no
means clear as yet, nor are the students of it agreed in their
conclusions, but we do know enough about the complex character of
consciousness, the actuality of the subconscious and the reaction of
strongly held attitudes upon bodily states to be in the way, generally,
of freeing this whole great matter from the priest, the healer, the
charlatan or the prophet of strange cults and referring it hereafter for
direction and employment to its proper agents--the physician, the expert
in disordered mental conditions and the instructed spiritual adviser.

It is now generally agreed that suggestion, however induced, may
positively affect bodily function. If it is a wrong suggestion its
effects are hurtful, right suggestion its effects are helpful. Now since
a vast range of physical maladjustments--and this may be broadened to
include nervous maladjustments as well--is functional, suggestive
therapeutics have a far-reaching and distinct field. When Christian
Science or any other healing cult reports cures in this field, those
cures, if verified by sufficient testimony, may be accepted as
accomplished. Those who have accomplished them may take what credit they
will for their own agency in the matter, but for all that the cure is no
testimony at all to the truth or falsity of their system. It