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Science and
Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter 14
— Recapitulation
For precept must be upon
precept, precept upon precept;
line upon line, line upon line;
here a little, and there a
little. —
ISAIAH.
This chapter is from the first
edition of the author's
class-book, copyrighted in 1870.
After much labor and increased
spiritual understanding, she
revised that treatise for this
volume in 1875. Absolute
Christian Science pervades its
statements, to elucidate
scientific metaphysics.
QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS
Question. — What
is God?
Answer. — God is
incorporeal, divine, supreme,
infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, Love.
Question. — Are
these terms synonymous?
Answer. — They are.
They refer to one absolute God.
They are also intended to express
the nature, essence, and
wholeness of Deity. The
attributes of God are justice,
mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so
on.
Question. — Is
there more than one God or
Principle?
Answer. — There is
not. Principle and its idea is
one, and this one is God,
omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnipresent Being, and His
reflection is man and the
universe. Omni is adopted
from the Latin adjective
signifying all. Hence God
combines all-power or potency,
all-science or true knowledge,
all-presence. The varied
manifestations of Christian
Science indicate Mind, never
matter, and have one
Principle.
Question. — What
are spirits and souls?
Answer. — To human
belief, they are personalities
constituted of mind and matter,
life and death, truth and error,
good and evil; but these
contrasting pairs of terms
represent contraries, as
Christian Science reveals, which
neither dwell together nor
assimilate. Truth is immortal;
error is mortal. Truth is
limitless; error is limited.
Truth is intelligent; error is
non-intelligent. Moreover, Truth
is real, and error is unreal.
This last statement contains the
point you will most reluctantly
admit, although first and last it
is the most important to
understand.
The term souls or
spirits is as improper as
the term gods. Soul or
Spirit signifies Deity and
nothing else. There is no finite
soul nor spirit. Soul or Spirit
means only one Mind, and cannot
be rendered in the plural.
Heathen mythology and Jewish
theology have perpetuated the
fallacy that intelligence, soul,
and life can be in matter; and
idolatry and ritualism are the
outcome of all man-made beliefs.
The Science of Christianity comes
with fan in hand to separate the
chaff from the wheat. Science
will declare God aright, and
Christianity will demonstrate
this declaration and its divine
Principle, making mankind better
physically, morally, and
spiritually.
Question. — What
are the demands of the Science of
Soul?
Answer. — The first
demand of this Science is, "Thou
shalt have no other gods before
me." This me is Spirit.
Therefore the command means this:
Thou shalt have no intelligence,
no life, no substance, no truth,
no love, but that which is
spiritual. The second is like
unto it, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself." It should
be thoroughly understood that all
men have one Mind, one God and
Father, one Life, Truth, and
Love. Mankind will become perfect
in proportion as this fact
becomes apparent, war will cease
and the true brotherhood of man
will be established. Having no
other gods, turning to no other
but the one perfect Mind to guide
him, man is the likeness of God,
pure and eternal, having that
Mind which was also in
Christ.
Science reveals Spirit, Soul,
as not in the body, and God as
not in man but as reflected by
man. The greater cannot be in the
lesser. The belief that the
greater can be in the lesser is
an error that works ill. This is
a leading point in the Science of
Soul, that Principle is not in
its idea. Spirit, Soul, is not
confined in man, and is never in
matter. We reason imperfectly
from effect to cause, when we
conclude that matter is the
effect of Spirit; but a
priori reasoning shows
material existence to be
enigmatical. Spirit gives the
true mental idea. We cannot
interpret Spirit, Mind, through
matter. Matter neither sees,
hears, nor feels.
Reasoning from cause to effect
in the Science of Mind, we begin
with Mind, which must be
understood through the idea which
expresses it and cannot be
learned from its opposite,
matter. Thus we arrive at Truth,
or intelligence, which evolves
its own unerring idea and never
can be coordinate with human
illusions. If Soul sinned, it
would be mortal, for sin is
mortality's self, because it
kills itself. If Truth is
immortal, error must be mortal,
because error is unlike Truth.
Because Soul is immortal, Soul
cannot sin, for sin is not the
eternal verity of being.
Question. — What
is the scientific statement of
being?
Answer. — There is no
life, truth, intelligence, nor
substance in matter. All is
infinite Mind and its infinite
manifestation, for God is
All-in-all. Spirit is immortal
Truth; matter is mortal error.
Spirit is the real and eternal;
matter is the unreal and
temporal. Spirit is God, and man
is His image and likeness.
Therefore man is not material; he
is spiritual.
Question. — What
is substance?
Answer. — Substance
is that which is eternal and
incapable of discord and decay.
Truth, Life, and Love are
substance, as the Scriptures use
this word in Hebrews: "The
substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen."
Spirit, the synonym of Mind,
Soul, or God, is the only real
substance. The spiritual
universe, including individual
man, is a compound idea,
reflecting the divine substance
of Spirit.
Question. — What
is Life?
Answer. — Life is
divine Principle, Mind, Soul,
Spirit. Life is without beginning
and without end. Eternity, not
time, expresses the thought of
Life, and time is no part of
eternity. One ceases in
proportion as the other is
recognized. Time is finite;
eternity is forever infinite.
Life is neither in nor of matter.
What is termed matter is unknown
to Spirit, which includes in
itself all substance and is Life
eternal. Matter is a human
concept. Life is divine Mind.
Life is not limited. Death and
finiteness are unknown to Life.
If Life ever had a beginning, it
would also have an ending.
Question. — What
is intelligence?
Answer. —
Intelligence is omniscience,
omnipresence, and omnipotence. It
is the primal and eternal quality
of infinite Mind, of the triune
Principle, — Life, Truth,
and Love, — named God.
Question. — What
is Mind?
Answer. — Mind is
God. The exterminator of error is
the great truth that God, good,
is the only Mind, and that
the supposititious opposite of
infinite Mind — called
devil or evil — is
not Mind, is not Truth, but
error, without intelligence or
reality. There can be but one
Mind, because there is but one
God; and if mortals claimed no
other Mind and accepted no other,
sin would be unknown. We can have
but one Mind, if that one is
infinite. We bury the sense of
infinitude, when we admit that,
although God is infinite, evil
has a place in this infinity, for
evil can have no place, where all
space is filled with God.
We lose the high signification
of omnipotence, when after
admitting that God, or good, is
omnipresent and has all-power, we
still believe there is another
power, named evil. This
belief that there is more than
one mind is as pernicious to
divine theology as are ancient
mythology and pagan idolatry.
With one Father, even God, the
whole family of man would be
brethren; and with one Mind and
that God, or good, the
brotherhood of man would consist
of Love and Truth, and have unity
of Principle and spiritual power
which constitute divine Science.
The supposed existence of more
than one mind was the basic error
of idolatry. This error assumed
the loss of spiritual power, the
loss of the spiritual presence of
Life as infinite Truth without an
unlikeness, and the loss of Love
as ever present and
universal.
Divine Science explains the
abstract statement that there is
one Mind by the following
self-evident proposition: If God,
or good, is real, then evil, the
unlikeness of God, is unreal. And
evil can only seem to be real by
giving reality to the unreal. The
children of God have but one
Mind. How can good lapse into
evil, when God, the Mind of man,
never sins? The standard of
perfection was originally God and
man. Has God taken down His own
standard, and has man fallen?
God is the creator of man,
and, the divine Principle of man
remaining perfect, the divine
idea or reflection, man, remains
perfect. Man is the expression of
God's being. If there ever was a
moment when man did not express
the divine perfection, then there
was a moment when man did not
express God, and consequently a
time when Deity was unexpressed
— that is, without entity.
If man has lost perfection, then
he has lost his perfect
Principle, the divine Mind. If
man ever existed without this
perfect Principle or Mind, then
man's existence was a myth.
The relations of God and man,
divine Principle and idea, are
indestructible in Science; and
Science knows no lapse from nor
return to harmony, but holds the
divine order or spiritual law, in
which God and all that He creates
are perfect and eternal, to have
remained unchanged in its eternal
history.
The unlikeness of Truth,
— named error, —
the opposite of Science, and the
evidence before the five
corporeal senses, afford no
indication of the grand facts of
being; even as these so-called
senses receive no intimation of
the earth's motions or of the
science of astronomy, but yield
assent to astronomical
propositions on the authority of
natural science.
The facts of divine Science
should be admitted, —
although the evidence as to these
facts is not supported by evil,
by matter, or by material sense,
— because the evidence that
God and man coexist is fully
sustained by spiritual sense. Man
is, and forever has been, God's
reflection. God is infinite,
therefore ever present, and there
is no other power nor presence.
Hence the spirituality of the
universe is the only fact of
creation. "Let God be true, but
every [material] man a
liar."
Question. — Are
doctrines and creeds a benefit to
man?
Answer. — The author
subscribed to an orthodox creed
in early youth, and tried to
adhere to it until she caught the
first gleam of that which
interprets God as above mortal
sense. This view rebuked human
beliefs, and gave the spiritual
import, expressed through
Science, of all that proceeds
from the divine Mind. Since then
her highest creed has been divine
Science, which, reduced to human
apprehension, she has named
Christian Science. This Science
teaches man that God is the only
Life, and that this Life is Truth
and Love; that God is to be
understood, adored, and
demonstrated; that divine Truth
casts out suppositional error and
heals the sick.
The way which leads to
Christian Science is straight and
narrow. God has set His signet
upon Science, making it
coordinate with all that is real
and only with that which is
harmonious and eternal. Sickness,
sin, and death, being
inharmonious, do not originate in
God nor belong to His government.
His law, rightly understood,
destroys them. Jesus furnished
proofs of these statements.
Question. — What
is error?
Answer. — Error is a
supposition that pleasure and
pain, that intelligence,
substance, life, are existent in
matter. Error is neither Mind nor
one of Mind's faculties. Error is
the contradiction of Truth. Error
is a belief without
understanding. Error is unreal
because untrue. It is that which
seemeth to be and is not. If
error were true, its truth would
be error, and we should have a
self-evident absurdity —
namely, erroneous truth.
Thus we should continue to lose
the standard of Truth.
Question. — Is
there no sin?
Answer. — All reality
is in God and His creation,
harmonious and eternal. That
which He creates is good, and He
makes all that is made. Therefore
the only reality of sin,
sickness, or death is the awful
fact that unrealities seem real
to human, erring belief, until
God strips off their disguise.
They are not true, because they
are not of God. We learn in
Christian Science that all
inharmony of mortal mind or body
is illusion, possessing neither
reality nor identity though
seeming to be real and
identical.
The Science of Mind disposes
of all evil. Truth, God, is not
the father of error. Sin,
sickness, and death are to be
classified as effects of error.
Christ came to destroy the belief
of sin. The God-principle is
omnipresent and omnipotent. God
is everywhere, and nothing apart
from Him is present or has power.
Christ is the ideal Truth, that
comes to heal sickness and sin
through Christian Science, and
attributes all power to God.
Jesus is the name of the man who,
more than all other men, has
presented Christ, the true idea
of God, healing the sick and the
sinning and destroying the power
of death. Jesus is the human man,
and Christ is the divine idea;
hence the duality of Jesus the
Christ.
In an age of ecclesiastical
despotism, Jesus introduced the
teaching and practice of
Christianity, affording the proof
of Christianity's truth and love;
but to reach his example and to
test its unerring Science
according to his rule, healing
sickness, sin, and death, a
better understanding of God as
divine Principle, Love, rather
than personality or the man
Jesus, is required.
Jesus established what he said
by demonstration, thus making his
acts of higher importance than
his words. He proved what he
taught. This is the Science of
Christianity. Jesus proved
the Principle, which heals the
sick and casts out error, to be
divine. Few, however, except his
students understood in the least
his teachings and their glorious
proofs, — namely, that Life,
Truth, and Love (the Principle of
this unacknowledged Science)
destroy all error, evil, disease,
and death.
The reception accorded to
Truth in the early Christian era
is repeated to-day. Whoever
introduces the Science of
Christianity will be scoffed at
and scourged with worse cords
than those which cut the flesh.
To the ignorant age in which it
first appears, Science seems to
be a mistake, — hence the
misinterpretation and consequent
maltreatment which it receives.
Christian marvels (and
marvel is the simple
meaning of the Greek word
rendered miracle in the
New Testament) will be
misunderstood and misused by
many, until the glorious
Principle of these marvels is
gained.
If sin, sickness, and death
are as real as Life, Truth, and
Love, then they must all be from
the same source; God must be
their author. Now Jesus came to
destroy sin, sickness, and death;
yet the Scriptures aver, "I am
not come to destroy, but to
fulfil." Is it possible, then, to
believe that the evils which
Jesus lived to destroy are real
or the offspring of the divine
will?
Despite the hallowing
influence of Truth in the
destruction of error, must error
still be immortal? Truth spares
all that is true. If evil is
real, Truth must make it so; but
error, not Truth, is the author
of the unreal, and the unreal
vanishes, while all that is real
is eternal. The apostle says that
the mission of Christ is to
"destroy the works of the devil."
Truth destroys falsity and error,
for light and darkness cannot
dwell together. Light
extinguishes the darkness, and
the Scripture declares that there
is "no night there." To Truth
there is no error, — all is
Truth. To infinite Spirit there
is no matter, — all is
Spirit, divine Principle and its
idea.
Question. — What
is man?
Answer. — Man is not
matter; he is not made up of
brain, blood, bones, and other
material elements. The Scriptures
inform us that man is made in the
image and likeness of God. Matter
is not that likeness. The
likeness of Spirit cannot be so
unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual
and perfect; and because he is
spiritual and perfect, he must be
so understood in Christian
Science. Man is idea, the image,
of Love; he is not physique. He
is the compound idea of God,
including all right ideas; the
generic term for all that
reflects God's image and
likeness; the conscious identity
of being as found in Science, in
which man is the reflection of
God, or Mind, and therefore is
eternal; that which has no
separate mind from God; that
which has not a single quality
underived from Deity; that which
possesses no life, intelligence,
nor creative power of his own,
but reflects spiritually all that
belongs to his Maker.
And God said: "Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness;
and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the
earth."
Man is incapable of sin,
sickness, and death. The real man
cannot depart from holiness, nor
can God, by whom man is evolved,
engender the capacity or freedom
to sin. A mortal sinner is not
God's man. Mortals are the
counterfeits of immortals. They
are the children of the wicked
one, or the one evil, which
declares that man begins in dust
or as a material embryo. In
divine Science, God and the real
man are inseparable as divine
Principle and idea.
Error, urged to its final
limits, is self-destroyed. Error
will cease to claim that soul is
in body, that life and
intelligence are in matter, and
that this matter is man. God is
the Principle of man, and man is
the idea of God. Hence man is not
mortal nor material. Mortals will
disappear, and immortals, or the
children of God, will appear as
the only and eternal verities of
man. Mortals are not fallen
children of God. They never had a
perfect state of being, which may
subsequently be regained. They
were, from the beginning of
mortal history, "conceived in sin
and brought forth in iniquity."
Mortality is finally swallowed up
in immortality. Sin, sickness,
and death must disappear to give
place to the facts which belong
to immortal man.
Learn this, O mortal, and
earnestly seek the spiritual
status of man, which is outside
of all material selfhood.
Remember that the Scriptures say
of mortal man: "As for man, his
days are as grass: as a flower of
the field, so he flourisheth. For
the wind passeth over it, and it
is gone; and the place thereof
shall know it no more."
When speaking of God's
children, not the children of
men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of
God is within you;" that is,
Truth and Love reign in the real
man, showing that man in God's
image is unfallen and eternal.
Jesus beheld in Science the
perfect man, who appeared to him
where sinning mortal man appears
to mortals. In this perfect man
the Saviour saw God's own
likeness, and this correct view
of man healed the sick. Thus
Jesus taught that the kingdom of
God is intact, universal, and
that man is pure and holy. Man is
not a material habitation for
Soul; he is himself spiritual.
Soul, being Spirit, is seen in
nothing imperfect nor
material.
Whatever is material is
mortal. To the five corporeal
senses, man appears to be matter
and mind united; but Christian
Science reveals man as the idea
of God, and declares the
corporeal senses to be mortal and
erring illusions. Divine Science
shows it to be impossible that a
material body, though interwoven
with matter's highest stratum,
misnamed mind, should be man,
— the genuine and perfect
man, the immortal idea of being,
indestructible and eternal. Were
it otherwise, man would be
annihilated.
Question. — What
are body and Soul?
Answer. — Identity is
the reflection of Spirit, the
reflection in multifarious forms
of the living Principle, Love.
Soul is the substance, Life, and
intelligence of man, which is
individualized, but not in
matter. Soul can never reflect
anything inferior to Spirit.
Man is the expression of Soul.
The Indians caught some glimpses
of the underlying reality, when
they called a certain beautiful
lake "the smile of the Great
Spirit." Separated from man, who
expresses Soul, Spirit would be a
nonentity; man, divorced from
Spirit, would lose his entity.
But there is, there can be, no
such division, for man is
coexistent with God.
What evidence of Soul or of
immortality have you within
mortality? Even according to the
teachings of natural science, man
has never beheld Spirit or Soul
leaving a body or entering it.
What basis is there for the
theory of indwelling spirit,
except the claim of mortal
belief? What would be thought of
the declaration that a house was
inhabited, and by a certain class
of persons, when no such persons
were ever seen to go into the
house or to come out of it, nor
were they even visible through
the windows? Who can see a soul
in the body?
Question. — Does
brain think, and do nerves feel,
and is there intelligence in
matter?
Answer. — No, not if
God is true and mortal man a
liar. The assertion that there
can be pain or pleasure in matter
is erroneous. That body is most
harmonious in which the discharge
of the natural functions is least
noticeable. How can intelligence
dwell in matter when matter is
non-intelligent and brain-lobes
cannot think? Matter cannot
perform the functions of Mind.
Error says, "I am man;" but this
belief is mortal and far from
actual. From beginning to end,
whatever is mortal is composed of
material human beliefs and of
nothing else. That only is real
which reflects God. St. Paul
said, "But when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by His grace,
. . . I conferred not with flesh
and blood."
Mortal man is really a
self-contradictory phrase, for
man is not mortal, "neither
indeed can be;" man is immortal.
If a child is the offspring of
physical sense and not of Soul,
the child must have a material,
not a spiritual origin. With what
truth, then, could the Scriptural
rejoicing be uttered by any
mother, "I have gotten a man from
the Lord"? On the contrary, if
aught comes from God, it cannot
be mortal and material; it must
be immortal and spiritual.
Matter is neither
self-existent nor a product of
Spirit. An image of mortal
thought, reflected on the retina,
is all that the eye beholds.
Matter cannot see, feel, hear,
taste, nor smell. It is not
self-cognizant, — cannot
feel itself, see itself, nor
understand itself. Take away
so-called mortal mind, which
constitutes matter's supposed
selfhood, and matter can take no
cognizance of matter. Does that
which we call dead ever see,
hear, feel, or use any of the
physical senses?
"In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. And the
earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of
the deep." (Genesis i. 1, 2.) In
the vast forever, in the Science
and truth of being, the only
facts are Spirit and its
innumerable creations. Darkness
and chaos are the imaginary
opposites of light,
understanding, and eternal
harmony, and they are the
elements of nothingness.
We admit that black is not a
color, because it reflects no
light. So evil should be denied
identity or power, because it has
none of the divine hues. Paul
says: "For the invisible things
of Him, from the creation of the
world, are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are
made." (Romans i. 20.) When the
substance of Spirit appears in
Christian Science, the
nothingness of matter is
recognized. Where the spirit of
God is, and there is no place
where God is not, evil becomes
nothing, — the opposite of
the something of Spirit. If there
is no spiritual reflection, then
there remains only the darkness
of vacuity and not a trace of
heavenly tints.
Nerves are an element of the
belief that there is sensation in
matter, whereas matter is devoid
of sensation. Consciousness, as
well as action, is governed by
Mind, — is in God, the
origin and governor of all that
Science reveals. Material sense
has its realm apart from Science
in the unreal. Harmonious action
proceeds from Spirit, God.
Inharmony has no Principle; its
action is erroneous and
presupposes man to be in matter.
Inharmony would make matter the
cause as well as the effect of
intelligence, or Soul, thus
attempting to separate Mind from
God.
Man is not God, and God is not
man. Again, God, or good, never
made man capable of sin. It is
the opposite of good — that
is, evil — which seems to
make men capable of wrong-doing.
Hence, evil is but an illusion,
and it has no real basis. Evil is
a false belief. God is not its
author. The supposititious parent
of evil is a lie.
The Bible declares: "All
things were made by Him [the
divine Word]; and without Him
was not anything made that was
made." This is the eternal verity
of divine Science. If sin,
sickness, and death were
understood as nothingness, they
would disappear. As vapor melts
before the sun, so evil would
vanish before the reality of
good. One must hide the other.
How important, then, to choose
good as the reality! Man is
tributary to God, Spirit, and to
nothing else. God's being is
infinity, freedom, harmony, and
boundless bliss. "Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty." Like the archpriests of
yore, man is free "to enter into
the holiest," — the realm of
God.
Material sense never helps
mortals to understand Spirit,
God. Through spiritual sense
only, man comprehends and loves
Deity. The various contradictions
of the Science of Mind by the
material senses do not change the
unseen Truth, which remains
forever intact. The forbidden
fruit of knowledge, against which
wisdom warns man, is the
testimony of error, declaring
existence to be at the mercy of
death, and good and evil to be
capable of commingling. This is
the significance of the Scripture
concerning this "tree of the
knowledge of good and evil,"
— this growth of material
belief, of which it is said: "In
the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die." Human
hypotheses first assume the
reality of sickness, sin, and
death, and then assume the
necessity of these evils because
of their admitted actuality.
These human verdicts are the
procurers of all discord.
If Soul sins, it must be
mortal. Sin has the elements of
self-destruction. It cannot
sustain itself. If sin is
supported, God must uphold it,
and this is impossible, since
Truth cannot support error. Soul
is the divine Principle of man
and never sins, — hence the
immortality of Soul. In Science
we learn that it is material
sense, not Soul, which sins; and
it will be found that it is the
sense of sin which is lost, and
not a sinful soul. When reading
the Scriptures, the substitution
of the word sense for
soul gives the exact
meaning in a majority of
cases.
Human thought has adulterated
the meaning of the word
soul through the
hypothesis that soul is both an
evil and a good intelligence,
resident in matter. The proper
use of the word soul can
always be gained by substituting
the word God, where the
deific meaning is required. In
other cases, use the word
sense, and you will have
the scientific signification. As
used in Christian Science, Soul
is properly the synonym of
Spirit, or God; but out of
Science, soul is identical with
sense, with material
sensation.
Question. — Is it
important to understand these
explanations in order to heal the
sick?
Answer. — It is,
since Christ is "the way" and the
truth casting out all error.
Jesus called himself "the Son of
man," but not the son of Joseph.
As woman is but a species of the
genera, he was literally the Son
of Man. Jesus was the highest
human concept of the perfect man.
He was inseparable from Christ,
the Messiah, — the divine
idea of God outside the flesh.
This enabled Jesus to demonstrate
his control over matter. Angels
announced to the Wisemen of old
this dual appearing, and angels
whisper it, through faith, to the
hungering heart in every age.
Sickness is part of the error
which Truth casts out. Error will
not expel error. Christian
Science is the law of Truth,
which heals the sick on the basis
of the one Mind or God. It can
heal in no other way, since the
human, mortal mind so-called is
not a healer, but causes the
belief in disease.
Then comes the question, how
do drugs, hygiene, and animal
magnetism heal? It may be
affirmed that they do not heal,
but only relieve suffering
temporarily, exchanging one
disease for another. We classify
disease as error, which nothing
but Truth or Mind can heal, and
this Mind must be divine, not
human. Mind transcends all other
power, and will ultimately
supersede all other means in
healing. In order to heal by
Science, you must not be ignorant
of the moral and spiritual
demands of Science nor disobey
them. Moral ignorance or sin
affects your demonstration, and
hinders its approach to the
standard in Christian
Science.
After the author's sacred
discovery, she affixed the name
"Science" to Christianity, the
name "error" to corporeal sense,
and the name "substance" to Mind.
Science has called the world to
battle over this issue and its
demonstration, which heals the
sick, destroys error, and reveals
the universal harmony. To those
natural Christian Scientists, the
ancient worthies, and to Christ
Jesus, God certainly revealed the
spirit of Christian Science, if
not the absolute letter.
Because the Science of Mind
seems to bring into dishonor the
ordinary scientific schools,
which wrestle with material
observations alone, this Science
has met with opposition; but if
any system honors God, it ought
to receive aid, not opposition,
from all thinking persons. And
Christian Science does honor God
as no other theory honors Him,
and it does this in the way of
His appointing, by doing many
wonderful works through the
divine name and nature. One must
fulfil one's mission without
timidity or dissimulation, for to
be well done, the work must be
done unselfishly. Christianity
will never be based on a divine
Principle and so found to be
unerring, until its absolute
Science is reached. When this is
accomplished, neither pride,
prejudice, bigotry, nor envy can
wash away its foundation, for it
is built upon the rock,
Christ.
Question. — Does
Christian Science, or
metaphysical healing, include
medication, material hygiene,
mesmerism, hypnotism, theosophy,
or spiritualism?
Answer. — Not one of
them is included in it. In divine
Science, the supposed laws of
matter yield to the law of Mind.
What are termed natural science
and material laws are the
objective states of mortal mind.
The physical universe expresses
the conscious and unconscious
thoughts of mortals. Physical
force and mortal mind are one.
Drugs and hygiene oppose the
supremacy of the divine Mind.
Drugs and inert matter are
unconscious, mindless. Certain
results, supposed to proceed from
drugs, are really caused by the
faith in them which the false
human consciousness is educated
to feel.
Mesmerism is mortal, material
illusion. Animal magnetism is the
voluntary or involuntary action
of error in all its forms; it is
the human antipode of divine
Science. Science must triumph
over material sense, and Truth
over error, thus putting an end
to the hypotheses involved in all
false theories and practices.
Question. — Is
materiality the concomitant of
spirituality, and is material
sense a necessary preliminary to
the understanding and expression
of Spirit?
Answer. — If error is
necessary to define or to reveal
Truth, the answer is yes; but not
otherwise. Material
sense is an absurd phrase,
for matter has no sensation.
Science declares that Mind, not
matter, sees, hears, feels,
speaks. Whatever contradicts this
statement is the false sense,
which ever betrays mortals into
sickness, sin, and death. If the
unimportant and evil appear, only
soon to disappear because of
their uselessness or their
iniquity, then these ephemeral
views of error ought to be
obliterated by Truth. Why malign
Christian Science for instructing
mortals how to make sin, disease,
and death appear more and more
unreal?
Emerge gently from matter into
Spirit. Think not to thwart the
spiritual ultimate of all things,
but come naturally into Spirit
through better health and morals
and as the result of spiritual
growth. Not death, but the
understanding of Life, makes man
immortal. The belief that life
can be in matter or soul in body,
and that man springs from dust or
from an egg, is the result of the
mortal error which Christ, or
Truth, destroys by fulfilling the
spiritual law of being, in which
man is perfect, even as the
"Father which is in heaven is
perfect." If thought yields its
dominion to other powers, it
cannot outline on the body its
own beautiful images, but it
effaces them and delineates
foreign agents, called disease
and sin.
The heathen gods of mythology
controlled war and agriculture as
much as nerves control sensation
or muscles measure strength. To
say that strength is in matter,
is like saying that the power is
in the lever. The notion of any
life or intelligence in matter is
without foundation in fact, and
you can have no faith in
falsehood when you have learned
falsehood's true nature.
Suppose one accident happens
to the eye, another to the ear,
and so on, until every corporeal
sense is quenched. What is man's
remedy? To die, that he may
regain these senses? Even then he
must gain spiritual understanding
and spiritual sense in order to
possess immortal consciousness.
Earth's preparatory school must
be improved to the utmost. In
reality man never dies. The
belief that he dies will not
establish his scientific harmony.
Death is not the result of Truth
but of error, and one error will
not correct another.
Jesus proved by the prints of
the nails, that his body was the
same immediately after death as
before. If death restores sight,
sound, and strength to man, then
death is not an enemy but a
better friend than Life. Alas for
the blindness of belief, which
makes harmony conditional upon
death and matter, and yet
supposes Mind unable to produce
harmony! So long as this error of
belief remains, mortals will
continue mortal in belief and
subject to chance and change.
Sight, hearing, all the
spiritual senses of man, are
eternal. They cannot be lost.
Their reality and immortality are
in Spirit and understanding, not
in matter, — hence their
permanence. If this were not so,
man would be speedily
annihilated. If the five
corporeal senses were the medium
through which to understand God,
then palsy, blindness, and
deafness would place man in a
terrible situation, where he
would be like those "having no
hope, and without God in the
world;" but as a matter of fact,
these calamities often drive
mortals to seek and to find a
higher sense of happiness and
existence.
Life is deathless. Life is the
origin and ultimate of man, never
attainable through death, but
gained by walking in the pathway
of Truth both before and after
that which is called death. There
is more Christianity in seeing
and hearing spiritually than
materially. There is more Science
in the perpetual exercise of the
Mind-faculties than in their
loss. Lost they cannot be, while
Mind remains. The apprehension of
this gave sight to the blind and
hearing to the deaf centuries
ago, and it will repeat the
wonder.
Question. — You
speak of belief. Who or what is
it that believes?
Answer. — Spirit is
all-knowing; this precludes the
need of believing. Matter cannot
believe, and Mind understands.
The body cannot believe. The
believer and belief are one and
are mortal. Christian evidence is
founded on Science or
demonstrable Truth, flowing from
immortal Mind, and there is in
reality no such thing as
mortal mind. Mere belief
is blindness without Principle
from which to explain the reason
of its hope. The belief that life
is sentient and intelligent
matter is erroneous.
The Apostle James said, "Show
me thy faith without thy works,
and I will show thee my faith by
my works." The understanding that
Life is God, Spirit, lengthens
our days by strengthening our
trust in the deathless reality of
Life, its almightiness and
immortality.
This faith relies upon an
understood Principle. This
Principle makes whole the
diseased, and brings out the
enduring and harmonious phases of
things. The result of our
teachings is their sufficient
confirmation. When, on the
strength of these instructions,
you are able to banish a severe
malady, the cure shows that you
understand this teaching, and
therefore you receive the
blessing of Truth.
The Hebrew and Greek words
often translated belief
differ somewhat in meaning from
that conveyed by the English verb
believe; they have more
the significance of faith,
understanding, trust, constancy,
firmness. Hence the Scriptures
often appear in our common
version to approve and endorse
belief, when they mean to enforce
the necessity of
understanding.
Question. — Do the
five corporeal senses constitute
man?
Answer. — Christian
Science sustains with immortal
proof the impossibility of any
material sense, and defines these
so-called senses as mortal
beliefs, the testimony of
which cannot be true either of
man or of his Maker. The
corporeal senses can take no
cognizance of spiritual reality
and immortality. Nerves have no
more sensation, apart from what
belief bestows upon them, than
the fibres of a plant. Mind alone
possesses all faculties,
perception, and comprehension.
Therefore mental endowments are
not at the mercy of organization
and decomposition, —
otherwise the very worms could
unfashion man. If it were
possible for the real senses of
man to be injured, Soul could
reproduce them in all their
perfection; but they cannot be
disturbed nor destroyed, since
they exist in immortal Mind, not
in matter.
The less mind there is
manifested in matter the better.
When the unthinking lobster loses
its claw, the claw grows again.
If the Science of Life were
understood, it would be found
that the senses of Mind are never
lost and that matter has no
sensation. Then the human limb
would be replaced as readily as
the lobster's claw, — not
with an artificial limb, but with
the genuine one. Any hypothesis
which supposes life to be in
matter is an educated belief. In
infancy this belief is not equal
to guiding the hand to the mouth;
and as consciousness develops,
this belief goes out, —
yields to the reality of
everlasting Life.
Corporeal sense defrauds and
lies; it breaks all the commands
of the Mosaic Decalogue to meet
its own demands. How then can
this sense be the God-given
channel to man of divine
blessings or understanding? How
can man, reflecting God, be
dependent on material means for
knowing, hearing, seeing? Who
dares to say that the senses of
man can be at one time the medium
for sinning against God, at
another the medium for obeying
God? An affirmative reply would
contradict the Scripture, for the
same fountain sendeth not forth
sweet waters and bitter.
The corporeal senses are the
only source of evil or error.
Christian Science shows them to
be false, because matter has no
sensation, and no organic
construction can give it hearing
and sight nor make it the medium
of Mind. Outside the material
sense of things, all is harmony.
A wrong sense of God, man, and
creation is non-sense,
want of sense. Mortal belief
would have the material senses
sometimes good and sometimes bad.
It assures mortals that there is
real pleasure in sin; but the
grand truths of Christian Science
dispute this error.
Will-power is but a product of
belief, and this belief commits
depredations on harmony. Human
will is an animal propensity, not
a faculty of Soul. Hence it
cannot govern man aright.
Christian Science reveals Truth
and Love as the motive-powers of
man. Will — blind, stubborn,
and headlong — cooperates
with appetite and passion. From
this cooperation arises its evil.
From this also comes its
powerlessness, since all power
belongs to God, good.
The Science of Mind needs to
be understood. Until it is
understood, mortals are more or
less deprived of Truth. Human
theories are helpless to make man
harmonious or immortal, since he
is so already, according to
Christian Science. Our only need
is to know this and reduce to
practice the real man's divine
Principle, Love.
"Quench not the Spirit.
Despise not prophesyings." Human
belief — or knowledge gained
from the so-called material
senses — would, by fair
logic, annihilate man along with
the dissolving elements of clay.
The scientifically Christian
explanations of the nature and
origin of man destroy all
material sense with immortal
testimony. This immortal
testimony ushers in the spiritual
sense of being, which can be
obtained in no other way.
Sleep and mesmerism explain
the mythical nature of material
sense. Sleep shows material sense
as either oblivion, nothingness,
or an illusion or dream. Under
the mesmeric illusion of belief,
a man will think that he is
freezing when he is warm, and
that he is swimming when he is on
dry land. Needle-thrusts will not
hurt him. A delicious perfume
will seem intolerable. Animal
magnetism thus uncovers material
sense, and shows it to be a
belief without actual foundation
or validity. Change the belief,
and the sensation changes.
Destroy the belief, and the
sensation disappears.
Material man is made up of
involuntary and voluntary error,
of a negative right and a
positive wrong, the latter
calling itself right. Man's
spiritual individuality is never
wrong. It is the likeness of
man's Maker. Matter cannot
connect mortals with the true
origin and facts of being, in
which all must end. It is only by
acknowledging the supremacy of
Spirit, which annuls the claims
of matter, that mortals can lay
off mortality and find the
indissoluble spiritual link which
establishes man forever in the
divine likeness, inseparable from
his creator.
The belief that matter and
mind are one, — that matter
is awake at one time and asleep
at another, sometimes presenting
no appearance of mind, —
this belief culminates in another
belief, that man dies. Science
reveals material man as never the
real being. The dream or belief
goes on, whether our eyes are
closed or open. In sleep, memory
and consciousness are lost from
the body, and they wander whither
they will apparently with their
own separate embodiment.
Personality is not the
individuality of man. A wicked
man may have an attractive
personality.
When we are awake, we dream of
the pains and pleasures of
matter. Who will say, even though
he does not understand Christian
Science, that this dream —
rather than the dreamer —
may not be mortal man? Who can
rationally say otherwise, when
the dream leaves mortal man
intact in body and thought,
although the so-called dreamer is
unconscious? For right reasoning
there should be but one fact
before the thought, namely,
spiritual existence. In reality
there is no other existence,
since Life cannot be united to
its unlikeness, mortality.
Being is holiness, harmony,
immortality. It is already proved
that a knowledge of this, even in
small degree, will uplift the
physical and moral standard of
mortals, will increase longevity,
will purify and elevate
character. Thus progress will
finally destroy all error, and
bring immortality to light. We
know that a statement proved to
be good must be correct. New
thoughts are constantly obtaining
the floor. These two
contradictory theories —
that matter is something, or that
all is Mind — will dispute
the ground, until one is
acknowledged to be the victor.
Discussing his campaign, General
Grant said: "I propose to fight
it out on this line, if it takes
all summer." Science says: All is
Mind and Mind's idea. You must
fight it out on this line. Matter
can afford you no aid.
The notion that mind and
matter commingle in the human
illusion as to sin, sickness, and
death must eventually submit to
the Science of Mind, which denies
this notion. God is Mind, and
God is infinite; hence all
is Mind. On this statement
rests the Science of being, and
the Principle of this Science is
divine, demonstrating harmony and
immortality.
The conservative theory, long
believed, is that there are two
factors, matter and mind, uniting
on some impossible basis. This
theory would keep truth and error
always at war. Victory would
perch on neither banner. On the
other hand, Christian Science
speedily shows Truth to be
triumphant. To corporeal sense,
the sun appears to rise and set,
and the earth to stand still; but
astronomical science contradicts
this, and explains the solar
system as working on a different
plan. All the evidence of
physical sense and all the
knowledge obtained from physical
sense must yield to Science, to
the immortal truth of all
things.
Question. — Will
you explain sickness and show how
it is to be healed?
Answer. — The method
of Christian Science Mind-healing
is touched upon in a previous
chapter entitled Christian
Science Practice. A full answer
to the above question involves
teaching, which enables the
healer to demonstrate and prove
for himself the Principle and
rule of Christian Science or
metaphysical healing.
Mind must be found superior to
all the beliefs of the five
corporeal senses, and able to
destroy all ills. Sickness is a
belief, which must be annihilated
by the divine Mind. Disease is an
experience of so-called mortal
mind. It is fear made manifest on
the body. Christian Science takes
away this physical sense of
discord, just as it removes any
other sense of moral or mental
inharmony. That man is material,
and that matter suffers, —
these propositions can only seem
real and natural in illusion. Any
sense of soul in matter is not
the reality of being.
If Jesus awakened Lazarus from
the dream, illusion, of death,
this proved that the Christ could
improve on a false sense. Who
dares to doubt this consummate
test of the power and willingness
of divine Mind to hold man
forever intact in his perfect
state, and to govern man's entire
action? Jesus said: "Destroy this
temple [body], and in
three days I [Mind] will
raise it up;" and he did this for
tired humanity's reassurance.
Is it not a species of
infidelity to believe that so
great a work as the Messiah's was
done for himself or for God, who
needed no help from Jesus'
example to preserve the eternal
harmony? But mortals did need
this help, and Jesus pointed the
way for them. Divine Love always
has met and always will meet
every human need. It is not well
to imagine that Jesus
demonstrated the divine power to
heal only for a select number or
for a limited period of time,
since to all mankind and in every
hour, divine Love supplies all
good.
The miracle of grace is no
miracle to Love. Jesus
demonstrated the inability of
corporeality, as well as the
infinite ability of Spirit, thus
helping erring human sense to
flee from its own convictions and
seek safety in divine Science.
Reason, rightly directed, serves
to correct the errors of
corporeal sense; but sin,
sickness, and death will seem
real (even as the experiences of
the sleeping dream seem real)
until the Science of man's
eternal harmony breaks their
illusion with the unbroken
reality of scientific being.
Which of these two theories
concerning man are you ready to
accept? One is the mortal
testimony, changing, dying,
unreal. The other is the eternal
and real evidence, bearing
Truth's signet, its lap piled
high with immortal fruits.
Our Master cast out devils
(evils) and healed the sick. It
should be said of his followers
also, that they cast fear and all
evil out of themselves and others
and heal the sick. God will heal
the sick through man, whenever
man is governed by God. Truth
casts out error now as surely as
it did nineteen centuries ago.
All of Truth is not understood;
hence its healing power is not
fully demonstrated.
If sickness is true or the
idea of Truth, you cannot destroy
sickness, and it would be absurd
to try. Then classify sickness
and error as our Master did, when
he spoke of the sick, "whom Satan
hath bound," and find a sovereign
antidote for error in the
life-giving power of Truth acting
on human belief, a power which
opens the prison doors to such as
are bound, and sets the captive
free physically and morally.
When the illusion of sickness
or sin tempts you, cling
steadfastly to God and His idea.
Allow nothing but His likeness to
abide in your thought. Let
neither fear nor doubt overshadow
your clear sense and calm trust,
that the recognition of life
harmonious — as Life
eternally is — can destroy
any painful sense of, or belief
in, that which Life is not. Let
Christian Science, instead of
corporeal sense, support your
understanding of being, and this
understanding will supplant error
with Truth, replace mortality
with immortality, and silence
discord with harmony.
Question. — How
can I progress most rapidly in
the understanding of Christian
Science?
Answer. — Study
thoroughly the letter and imbibe
the spirit. Adhere to the divine
Principle of Christian Science
and follow the behests of God,
abiding steadfastly in wisdom,
Truth, and Love. In the Science
of Mind, you will soon ascertain
that error cannot destroy error.
You will also learn that in
Science there is no transfer of
evil suggestions from one mortal
to another, for there is but one
Mind, and this ever-present
omnipotent Mind is reflected by
man and governs the entire
universe. You will learn that in
Christian Science the first duty
is to obey God, to have one Mind,
and to love another as
yourself.
We all must learn that Life is
God. Ask yourself: Am I living
the life that approaches the
supreme good? Am I demonstrating
the healing power of Truth and
Love? If so, then the way will
grow brighter "unto the perfect
day." Your fruits will prove what
the understanding of God brings
to man. Hold perpetually this
thought, — that it is the
spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost
and Christ, which enables you to
demonstrate, with scientific
certainty, the rule of healing,
based upon its divine Principle,
Love, underlying, overlying, and
encompassing all true being.
"The sting of death is sin;
and the strength of sin is the
law," — the law of mortal
belief, at war with the facts of
immortal Life, even with the
spiritual law which says to the
grave, "Where is thy victory?"
But "when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be
brought to pass the saying that
is written, Death is swallowed up
in victory."
Question. — Have
Christian Scientists any
religious creed?
Answer. — They have
not, if by that term is meant
doctrinal beliefs. The following
is a brief exposition of the
important points, or religious
tenets, of Christian Science:
—
1. As adherents of Truth, we
take the inspired Word of the
Bible as our sufficient guide to
eternal Life.
2. We acknowledge and adore
one supreme and infinite God. We
acknowledge His Son, one Christ;
the Holy Ghost or divine
Comforter; and man in God's image
and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God's
forgiveness of sin in the
destruction of sin and the
spiritual understanding that
casts out evil as unreal. But the
belief in sin is punished so long
as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus'
atonement as the evidence of
divine, efficacious Love,
unfolding man's unity with God
through Christ Jesus the
Way-shower; and we acknowledge
that man is saved through Christ,
through Truth, Life, and Love as
demonstrated by the Galilean
Prophet in healing the sick and
overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the
crucifixion of Jesus and his
resurrection served to uplift
faith to understand eternal Life,
even the allness of Soul, Spirit,
and the nothingness of
matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to
watch, and pray for that Mind to
be in us which was also in Christ
Jesus; to do unto others as we
would have them do unto us; and
to be merciful, just, and
pure.
Go
to Chapter 15:
Genesis
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