Mary Baker Eddy has identified four levels of authority for action, depending on the particular office to which they pertain.  These four levels of authority are, to transact, to conduct, to institute, and to organize.  Although they are dealt with in greater detail later, a brief look at them is useful here.

The most basic of these is the authority to transact.  This authority involves putting into action discovered fundamental principles or laws that are not subject to multiple choice personal volition, but are anchored in reality pertaining to the productive functioning of society, the physical maintenance of life on this planet, and the advancement of civilization.

Mary Baker Eddy gave authority to "transact" the laws of the Mother Church to a self-perpetuating board, with provisions that enables an individual member of the church to demand that every member of the board fulfill the assigned function faithfully or be removed from office.  She provided no avenue for electing people to office, as there is no place for personal leadership under this authority to transact established fundamental laws.  This pattern, naturally, applies also to the government of a nation which is mandated under its constitution to put into action the fundamental principles that underpay reality for the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, rather than personal whims and dictatorial degrees.

The authority to "conduct," Mary Baker Eddy gives to the trustees of the Publishing Society, where the business at hand needs to be carried out with wisdom and the thrift of the best business procedures available at the time.  Here, personal leadership is required as the choices are no longer fixed by invariable fundamental laws or principles.  On the political scene, the department of energy, for instance, would conduct the work of setting up whatever is required to advance the development and production of nuclear energy which is mandated out of fundamental necessity under laws transacted by the legislature according to the natural principles that enable the increase in potential population density corresponding to the dynamics of life.

The next higher level of authority to "institute" is given to the structure that Mary Baker Eddy calls, Church.  "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science..."*(Science and Health 583:14)  This domain is related to discovery.  Here one neither conducts nor transacts, but probes the subtle absurdities of the universe to discover more of the fundamental principles of reality in order to gain a better understanding with which to enable advanced freedoms and capabilities.  We institute the enquiry into infinity.  We have no multiple choice options here, either, but are bound by the nature of reality and the principles of discovery.  On the political scene this role is fulfilled by the political party which institutes the advanced enquiry to discover more of the principles of life that increase the strength of civilization and the progress and security of mankind.

The fourth level of authority, to "organize" is understood to be the sole providence of infinite Mind that has set up the foundations of the universe.  Man has no authority here.  Oligarchism would organize the world around its self-made principle of looting on which it has depended since the days of feudalism, slavery, monetarist profiteering, dope pushing, etc., on which principle it still depends, but this principle has no natural authority and is destructive to those involved in it, as well as to those victimized by it.  Man has not the authority to organize reality.  Every attempt to do so is fatal.  Thus the great need of today to be politically alert.

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche