Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 61

Christian Science in the Gilded Age

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Mrs. Eddy did not plagiarize consciously from the writings of
Quimby. When she first began to construct her theory she referred to
his healing practices as the twilight of discovery. Quimby dealt
with mind as an agency to heal the body. To Mrs. Eddy, the human
mind was not the healer of disease —only the principle of God could
accomplish that, since that principle was divine and not human.(44)
Many recent histories, including those of her supporters, acknowledge
the debt Science owes Quimby(45). Mrs. Eddy's error was not in
extending or modernizing Quimbyism; it was in opening the floodgates
of criticism unnecessarily by denying her debt.
Was Christian Science philosophically in tune with the
twentieth century or was it merely a spir itual manifestation of Social
Darwinism? From the positive standpoint, the Emmanuel movement
was regarded as an "Episcopal flirtation with Mrs. Eddy." Believing
that mental illness could predate physical illness or vice-versa, the
Emmanuels united clergymen and doctors in an effort to heal the mind
and the body.(46) Emmanuelism, less divine but more material and
pragmatic, completed the revolution begun by Christian Science.(47)
Though not a philosopher, Georgine Milmine found Mrs. Eddy's
historical perspective narrow and uncompromising: "All the
physical sciences are the harmful inventions of mortal mind and the
slow .. .painful accumulation of exact knowledge has been but the
baser element of human nature. There was never such a discouraging
view of human history."(48) Yet, in another article, the journalist
sneers at the new religion for appealing to materialism and
perpetuating the fiction of a healthy society.(49)
The answer is simply that Christian Science philosophy
belongs in two eras. It offered release to the businessman of the gilded
age and hope to the rising middle and laboring classes in the next
generation. Christian Science discarded and added, adapting to the
needs of a dynamic society; it stood at the crossroads of American
intellectualism. It moved hesitantly, slowly, leaving its mark on a
new age, creating no philosophical revolution but, nevertheless,
inciting to a new and evolutionary trends.
College of Charleston

Stuart Knee