Nuclear physics tells us that
the entire universe contains not a single speck of matter, but is the
construct of energy arranged in 'empty' space by a system of
harmonizing principles without which the universe simply would not exist.
We are told that everything that we see hear or touch, even the world we live in, is but the
construct of patterns of energy all neatly organized by harmonizing principles that in
their effect create worlds upon worlds with a complexity in design that
reveals nothing less than an underlying incredible intelligence. We are
told that if even one
of the harmonizing principles was missing, or be antagonistic to the whole,
the physical universe would have no coherent foundation to exist, and so it wouldn't
exist. But it does exist. It exists as the product of an incredible
intelligence and its harmonizing 'Spirit' that might be termed
'Love.' But can this 'Love' that is not personal, but is universal, be
understood scientifically and become a force in the human world to uplift
civilization?
Dimensions of the Science of Love
An incidence occurred
in 1866 that quietly changed the course of history. It was winter. A woman fell
on an icy street in Lynn Massachusetts sustaining a severe injury in the fall.
Doctors determined it to be a spinal injury which they deemed incurable and to
be ultimately fatal. As her condition worsened the local Clergyman stopped by
before his Sunday service to prepare her for death, fearing that she might be
gone if he waited until after his service. It was in this extreme hour with the shadows
fast falling around her, that she mentally protested, remembering the healing
effects that were so easily accomplished by Christ Jesus and his followers
almost two millennia earlier.
Something must have
jarred her thinking in the flow of those moments. Perhaps it was the realization that
miracles don't actually happen in the 'real' world so that every phenomenon has a
underlying principle that produces the phenomenon. She might have realized also that
the ancient healings were essentially the effects of a harmonizing principle instead
of personal power, and if so that the
principle would remain valid and universally available throughout all time and
remain understandable and applicable with the same powerful efficiency.
We are told that
something happened in those moments that should seem impossible, but did occur. She found
herself suddenly well. She got off her deathbed, got dressed, and when the
Clergyman arrived later as promised, she opened the door for him completely healed.
And this is only the beginning of her
story. Her instant healing also closed the door to all her prior years of
struggling with poor health. Furthermore, the experience started a grand scientific journey of discovery of the science
of the process that
had healed her. It became a period interwoven with healing others and with teaching her discoveries. Her
Name is Mary Baker Eddy. She writes about this early period.
Through four successive years I
healed, preached,
and taught in a general way, refusing to take any
pay for my services and living on a small annuity.
At one time I was called to speak before the Lyceum
Club, at Westerly, Rhode Island. On my arrival my
hostess told me that her next-door neighbor was dying.
I asked permission to see her. It was granted, and with
my hostess I went to the invalid's house.
The physicians had given up the case and retired. I
had stood by her side about fifteen minutes when the sick
woman rose from her bed, dressed herself, and was well.
Afterwards they showed me the clothes already prepared
for her burial; and told me that her physicians had said
the diseased condition was caused by an injury received
from a surgical operation at the birth of her last babe, and
that it was impossible for her to be delivered of another
child. It is sufficient to add her babe was safely born,
and weighed twelve pounds. The mother afterwards
wrote to me, "I never before suffered so little in
childbirth."
This scientific demonstration so stirred the doctors and
clergy that they had my notices for a second lecture pulled
down, and refused me a hearing in their halls and churches.
This circumstance is cited simply to show the opposition
which Christian Science encountered a quarter-century
ago, as contrasted with its present welcome into the
sick-room.
Many were the desperate cases I instantly healed,
"without money and without price," and in most instances
without even an acknowledgment of the benefit.
Retrospection
and Introspection (1891) p. 40
During the nine years after her
healing she compiled the result of her journey of discovery in the form of a
textbook, which shed named: Science and Health. When the book was
published in 1875, critics admitted that it was "wholly original"
but added with a smile, "it will never be read." (p.37)
Well it was read. It was published in
over 300 editions till 1910 under the title Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures. It was read by millions and became translated into many
languages. Over the years many people testified that they were healed of all
sorts of diseases by simply reading the book.
Such was the scope of its science,
which for many people became a challenge to science itself as the cold tone
of science became modulated with the warm glow of love - the love unfolding
in healing. As an example of the historic development in science that has
changed so many people's life the sub-segment referring to "Science"
of the chapter: Science,
Theology, and Medicine, of the 1910 edition of the book:
Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures
has been added to this page.
The complete text of the book is available online for free
at this site and also at:
http://christianscience.rolf-witzsche.com/Christian-Science-Textbook/chapter.html
The book is also available in printed form in the format shown
below, at:
http://books.rolf-witzsche.com/book_15.html
Science
Christian Science discovered
107
In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ
Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery
Christian Science. God had been graciously preparing me during many years
for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine
Principle of scientific mental healing.
Mission of Christian Science
107
This apodictical Principle points to the
revelation of Immanuel, "God with us," - the sovereign
ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill "that
flesh is heir to." Through Christian Science, religion and medicine
are inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions are given to
faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently
with God.
Discontent with life 107
Feeling so perpetually the false
consciousness that life inheres in the body, yet remembering that in
reality God is our Life, we may well tremble in the prospect of those days
in which we must say, "I have no pleasure in them."
Whence came to me this heavenly conviction,
- a conviction antagonistic to the testimony of the physical senses?
According to St. Paul, it was "the gift of the grace of God given
unto me by the effectual working of His power." It was the divine law
of Life and Love, unfolding to me the demonstrable fact that matter
possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the
falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, "the
price of learning love," establish the truism that the only sufferer
is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer.
Demonstrable evidence 108
My conclusions were reached by allowing the
evidence of this revelation to multiply with mathematical certainty and
the lesser demonstration to prove the greater, as the product of three
multiplied by three, equalling nine, proves conclusively that three times
three duodecillions must be nine duodecillions, - not a fraction more, not
a unit less.
Light shining in darkness
108
When apparently near the confines of mortal
existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I
learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the
divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and
ever-present; that the opposite of Truth, - called error, sin, sickness,
disease, death, - is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind
in matter; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of
mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter,
thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.
New lines of thought 108
My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed
mind produces all the organism and action of the mortal
body, set my thoughts to work in new channels, and led up to my
demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All and matter is naught as
the leading factor in Mind-science.
Scientific evidence 109
Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly
that Mind is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind and
idea. This great fact is not, however, seen to be supported by sensible
evidence, until its divine Principle is demonstrated by healing the sick
and thus proved absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other
conclusion can be reached.
Solitary research 109
For three years after my discovery, I
sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the
Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time
and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm,
and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle of
all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in
primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the
Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through
divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in
the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine
power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic
Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: "Unto us a child is born,
. . . and his name shall be called Wonderful."
Jesus once said of his lessons: "My
doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will,
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of
myself." (John vii. 16, 17.)
God's allness learned 109
The three great verities of Spirit,
omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, - Spirit possessing all power,
filling all space, constituting all Science, - contradict forever the
belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval
existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, in which all that He
has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.
Thus it was that I beheld, as never before,
the awful unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light
another glorious proposition, - man's perfectibility and the establishment
of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Scriptural foundations 110
In following these leadings of scientific
revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were illumined;
reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of
Christian Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue taught me the
Science contained in this book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor
pen can overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criticism or
by careless or malicious students, and its ideas may be temporarily abused
and misrepresented; but the Science and truth therein will forever remain
to be discerned and demonstrated.
The demonstration lost and found
110
Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian
Science to heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost sight of,
and must again be spiritually discerned, taught, and demonstrated
according to Christ's command, with "signs following." Its
Science must be apprehended by as many as believe on Christ and
spiritually understand Truth.
Mystical antagonists 110
No analogy exists between the vague
hypotheses of agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or
millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I
find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the
divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.
Optical illustration of Science
111
Christian Science is natural, but not
physical. The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than is the
science of numbers, though departing from the realm of the physical, as
the Science of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to the name of
Science. The Principle of divine metaphysics is God; the practice of
divine metaphysics is the utilization of the power of Truth over error;
its rules demonstrate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted
and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the explanation of optics
rejects the incidental or inverted image and shows what this inverted
image is meant to represent.
Pertinent proposal 111
A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in
Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, - an
essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical
effects to physical causes rather than to a final spiritual cause, - is
one of many incidents which show that Christian Science meets a yearning
of the human race for spirituality.
Confirmatory tests 111
After a lengthy examination of my discovery
and its demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evident to me,
- that Mind governs the body, not partially but wholly. I submitted my
metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical tests.
Since then this system has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself,
whenever scientifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent
in medical practice.
One school of Truth 112
Is there more than one school of Christian
Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but
one method in its teaching. Those who depart from this method forfeit
their claims to belong to its school, and they become adherents of the
Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some other school. By this is
meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human
opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of divinity,
borrowed from that truly divine Science which eschews man-made systems,
they nevertheless remain wholly human in their origin and tendency and are
not scientifically Christian.
Unchanging Principle 112
From the infinite One in Christian Science
comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude come
spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great
Giver, are "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" for
thus are the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea characterized
in the epistle to the Hebrews.
On sandy foundations 112
Any theory of Christian Science, which
departs from what has already been stated and proved to be true, affords
no foundation upon which to establish a genuine school of this Science.
Also, if any so-called new school claims to be Christian Science, and yet
uses another author's discoveries without giving that author proper
credit, such a school is erroneous, for it inculcates a breach of that
divine commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou shalt not
steal."
Principle and practice 112
God is the Principle of divine metaphysics.
As there is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all
Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demonstration of this
divine Principle. The letter of Science plentifully reaches humanity
to-day, but its spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part, the
heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is
but the dead body of Science, - pulseless, cold, inanimate.
Reversible propositions
113
The fundamental propositions of divine
metaphysics are summarized in the four following, to me, self-evident
propositions. Even if reversed, these propositions will be found to agree
in statement and proof, showing mathematically their exact relation to
Truth. De Quincey says mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is
not purely metaphysical.
1. God is All-in-all.
2. God is good. Good is Mind.
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is
matter.
4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death,
evil, sin, disease. - Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipotent
God, Life.
Which of the denials in proposition four is
true? Both are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture, I find
that God is true, "but every [mortal] man a liar."
Metaphysical inversions
113
The divine metaphysics of Christian
Science, like the method in mathematics, proves the rule by inversion. For
example: There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain; no nerve in
Mind, and no mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in matter; no
matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter in good, and no good in
matter.
Definition of mortal mind
114
Usage classes both evil and good together
as mind; therefore, to be understood, the author calls
sick and sinful humanity mortal mind, - meaning by this
term the flesh opposed to Spirit, the human mind and evil in
contradistinction to the divine Mind, or Truth and good. The spiritually
unscientific definition of mind is based on the evidence of the physical
senses, which makes minds many and calls mind both human
and divine.
In Science, Mind is one,
including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts.
Imperfect terminology 114
Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and
involves an improper use of the word mind. As Mind is
immortal, the phrase mortal mind implies something untrue
and therefore unreal; and as the phrase is used in teaching Christian
Science, it is meant to designate that which has no real existence.
Indeed, if a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would be used;
but in expressing the new tongue we must sometimes recur to the old and
imperfect, and the new wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old
bottles of the letter.
Causation mental 114
Christian Science explains all cause and
effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and
body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the
interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In
divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and
eternal. Science shows that what is termed matter is but
the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.
Philologocal inadequacy
114
Apart from the usual opposition to
everything new, the one great obstacle to the reception of that
spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind-science comes, is
the inadequacy of material terms for metaphysical statements, and the
consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make them
comprehensible to any reader, who has not personally demonstrated
Christian Science as brought forth in my discovery. Job says: "The
ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat." The great difficulty is
to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into
the original spiritual tongue.
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF IMMORTAL MIND
GOD: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love,
Soul, Spirit, Mind.
MAN: God's spiritual idea, individual,
perfect, eternal.
IDEA: An image in Mind; the immediate
object of understanding. - Webster.
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND
First Degree: Depravity.
PHYSICAL. Evil beliefs, passions and
appetites, fear, depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, deceit,
hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, death.
Second Degree: Evil beliefs disappearing.
MORAL. Humanity, honesty, affection,
compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
Third Degree: Understanding.
SPIRITUAL. Wisdom, purity, spiritual
understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness.
Spiritual universe 116
In the third degree mortal mind disappears,
and man as God's image appears. Science so reverses the evidence before
the corporeal human senses, as to make this Scriptural testimony true in
our hearts, "The last shall be first, and the first last," so
that God and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and must of
necessity be, - all-inclusive.
Aim of Science
116
A correct view of Christian Science and of
its adaptation to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen.
Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the
power of Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical
enemies, - even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease,
and death, - nor insist upon the fact that God is all, therefore that
matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.
Divine persinality
116
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the
thought that God is not corporeal, but incorporeal,
- that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.
As the words person and personal
are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to
Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its
distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God,
means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,
- in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An
infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.
The term individuality is
also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one
of many, as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is One,
- not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.
Spiritual language 117
God is Spirit; therefore the language of
Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physical
nature and significance to the Supreme Being or His manifestation; mortals
alone do this. God's essential language is spoken of in the last chapter
of Mark's Gospel as the new tongue, the spiritual meaning of which is
attained through "signs following."
The miracles of Jesus 117
Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken,
the pure language of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes
and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and
demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and
sinning. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the divine Principle
involved in the miracles (marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his
mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh.
Opacity of the senses 117
Evidence drawn from the five physical
senses relates solely to human reason; and because of opacity to the true
light, human reason dimly reflects and feebly transmits Jesus' works and
words. Truth is a revelation.
Leaven of Truth 117
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human
doctrines. His parable of the "leaven, which a woman took, and hid in
three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened," impels the
inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ and
its spiritual interpretation, - an inference far above the merely
ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
Did not this parable point a moral with a
prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ,
Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world?
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever
at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally
glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
The divine and human contrasted
118
In their spiritual significance, Science,
Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include
spiritual laws emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace.
The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by a perverse
material sense of law, are metaphysically presented as three measures of
meal, - that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of
thought, dust is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and
modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws.
This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes the whole of mortal
thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
Certain contradictions 118
The definitions of material law, as given
by natural science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against
itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual.
Therefore they contradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love,
in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down
to earth.
Unescapable dilemma 119
When we endow matter with vague spiritual
power, - that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we cannot
really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, - we disown
the Almighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They either
presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they
assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of
this dilemma and consider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave
the creator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the
dilemma and regard God as the creator of matter, is not only to make Him
responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as
their source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpetual misrule
in the form and under the name of natural law.
God and nature 119
In one sense God is identical with nature,
but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The lawgiver,
whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not
the divine ideal of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is
represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as
unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature of Spirit, God.
The sun and Soul 119
In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it
contradicts the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth is in
motion and the sun at rest. As astronomy reverses the human perception of
the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science reverses the
seeming relation of Soul and body and makes body tributary to Mind. Thus
it is with man, who is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though
it seems otherwise to finite sense. But we shall never understand this
while we admit that soul is in body or mind in matter, and that man is
included in non-intelligence. Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and
eternal; and man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is God's
image.
Reversal of testimony 120
Science reverses the false testimony of the
physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental
facts of being. Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick if the
material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter can
make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick?
Yes, he is well in Science in which health is normal and disease is
abnormal.
Health and the senses 120
Health is not a condition of matter, but of
Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject
of health. The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be impossible for aught
but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore
the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of the physical
senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only
basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick,
overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.
Any conclusion pro or con,
deduced from supposed sensation in matter or from matter's supposed
consciousness of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of
the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate and so leads to
disease.
Historic illustrations 120
When Columbus gave freer breath to the
globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old
navigator, and disgrace and starvation stared him in the face; but sterner
still would have been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the
favorite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.
Copernicus mapped out the stellar system,
and before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields were
incorrectly explored.
Perennial beauty 121
The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the
fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher revelation than
the horoscope was to them displayed upon the empyrean, earth and heaven
were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God's perennial and happy
sunshine, golden with Truth. So we have goodness and beauty to gladden the
heart; but man, left to the hypotheses of material sense unexplained by
Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate star - "a weary
searcher for a viewless home."
Astronomic unfoldings 121
The earth's diurnal rotation is invisible
to the physical eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead
of the earth from west to east. Until rebuked by clearer views of the
everlasting facts, this false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment
and induced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often to be
erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple rule that the greater
controls the lesser. The sun is the central stillness, so far as our solar
system is concerned, and the earth revolves about the sun once a year,
besides turning daily on its own axis.
As thus indicated, astronomical order
imitates the action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflection
of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to divine
Science as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.
Opposing testimony 122
The evidence of the physical senses often
reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, -
assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts
of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their
false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, - the actual reign of
harmony on earth. The material senses' reversal of the Science of Soul was
practically exposed nineteen hundred years ago by the demonstrations of
Jesus; yet these so-called senses still make mortal mind tributary to
mortal body, and ordain certain sections of matter, such as brain and
nerves, as the seats of pain and pleasure, from which matter reports to
this so-called mind its status of happiness or misery.
Testimony of the senses
122
The optical focus is another proof of the
illusion of material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops
apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet and mingle. The barometer, -
that little prophet of storm and sunshine, denying the testimony of the
senses, - points to fair weather in the midst of murky clouds and
drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions,
which every thinker can recall for himself.
Spiritual sense of life
122
To material sense, the severance of the
jugular vein takes away life; but to spiritual sense and in Science, Life
goes on unchanged and being is eternal. Temporal life is a false sense of
existence.
Ptolemaic and psychical error
122
Our theories make the same mistake
regarding Soul and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system. They
insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tributary to matter.
Astronomical science has destroyed the false theory as to the relations of
the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the
greater error as to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and Principle of
man will then appear. The Ptolemaic blunder could not affect the harmony
of being as does the error relating to soul and body, which reverses the
order of Science and assigns to matter the power and prerogative of
Spirit, so that man becomes the most absolutely weak and inharmonious
creature in the universe.
Seeming and being 123
The verity of Mind shows conclusively how
it is that matter seems to be, but is not. Divine Science, rising above
physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts,
and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.
The term CHRISTIAN SCIENCE was introduced
by the author to designate the scientific system of divine healing.
The revelation consists of two parts:
1. The discovery of this divine Science of
Mind healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the
teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master.
2. The proof, by present demonstration,
that the so-called miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a
dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an ever-operative divine
Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the
scientific order and continuity of being.
Scientific basis 123
Christian Science differs from material
science, but not on that account is it less scientific. On the contrary,
Christian Science is pre-eminently scientific, being based on Truth, the
Principle of all science.
Physical science a blind belief
124
Physical science (so-called) is human
knowledge, - a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his
strength. When this human belief lacks organizations to support it, its
foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual basis, nor
holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect for cause and seeks
to find life and intelligence in matter, thus limiting Life and holding
fast to discord and death. In a word, human belief is a blind conclusion
from material reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which
immortal Spirit silences forever.
Right interpretation 124
The universe, like man, is to be
interpreted by Science from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be
understood; but when explained on the basis of physical sense and
represented as subject to growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like
man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma.
All force mental 124
Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are
properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the
equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and
said to the proud wave, "Thus far and no farther."
Spirit is the life, substance, and
continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation
must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine
Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in
this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
Corporeal changes 124
The elements and functions of the physical
body and of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its
beliefs. What is now considered the best condition for organic and
functional health in the human body may no longer be found indispensable
to health. Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and
health-giving. Neither organic inaction nor overaction is beyond God's
control; and man will be found normal and natural to changed mortal
thought, and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than he was
in the prior states which human belief created and sanctioned.
As human thought changes from one stage to
another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, - from fear to
hope and from faith to understanding, - the visible manifestation will at
last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God's
government, man is self-governed. When subordinate to the divine Spirit,
man cannot be controlled by sin or death, thus proving our material
theories about laws of health to be valueless.
The time and tide 125
The seasons will come and go with changes
of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist
will find that these changes cannot affect his crops. "As a vesture
shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed." The mariner will
have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the
sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the
stars, - he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist
will find his flower before its seed.
Mortal nothingness 125
Thus matter will finally be proved nothing
more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man through its
supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer
used in stating truth. The problem of nothingness, or "dust to
dust," will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void,
for mortality will cease when man beholds himself God's reflection, even
as man sees his reflection in a glass.
A lack of originality 126
All Science is divine. Human thought never
projected the least portion of true being. Human belief has sought and
interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have
reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced
a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound.
Antagonistic questions 126
The point at issue between Christian
Science on the one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall
Science explain cause and effect as being both natural and spiritual? Or
shall all that is beyond the cognizance of the material senses be called
supernatural, and be left to the mercy of speculative hypotheses?
Biblical basis 126
I have set forth Christian Science and its
application to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them. I
have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health,
longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in
modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and
demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles.
The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in
"the straight and narrow way" of Truth.
Science and Christianity
126
If Christendom resists the author's
application of the word Science to Christianity, or questions her use of
the word Science, she will not therefore lose faith in Christianity, nor
will Christianity lose its hold upon her. If God, the All-in-all, be the
creator of the spiritual universe, including man, then everything entitled
to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge
or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable
divinity.
Scientific terms 127
The terms Divine Science, Spiritual
Science, Christ Science or Christian Science, or Science alone, she
employs interchangeably, according to the requirements of the context.
These synonymous terms stand for everything relating to God, the infinite,
supreme, eternal Mind. It may be said, however, that the term Christian
Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity. Christian
Science reveals God, not as the author of sin, sickness, and death, but as
divine Principle, Supreme Being, Mind, exempt from all evil. It teaches
that matter is the falsity, not the fact, of existence; that nerves,
brain, stomach, lungs, and so forth, have - as matter - no intelligence,
life, nor sensation.
No physical science 127
There is no physical science, inasmuch as
all truth proceeds from the divine Mind. Therefore truth is not human, and
is not a law of matter, for matter is not a lawgiver. Science is an
emanation of divine Mind, and is alone able to interpret God aright. It
has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance, -
the Comforter which leadeth into all truth.
Christian Science eschews what is called
natural science, in so far as this is built on the false hypotheses that
matter is its own lawgiver, that law is founded on material conditions,
and that these are final and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is
natural and primitive. It is not miraculous to itself.
Practical Science 128
The term Science, properly understood,
refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe,
inclusive of man. From this it follows that business men and cultured
scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and
mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them
acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary
capacity. The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding,
becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat
from itself, and requires less repose. A knowledge of the Science of being
develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the
atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms.
It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.
An odor becomes beneficent and agreeable
only in proportion to its escape into the surrounding atmosphere. So it is
with our knowledge of Truth. If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man
for waking him from a cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist Truth,
which banishes - yea, forever destroys with the higher testimony of Spirit
- the so-called evidence of matter.
Mathematics and scientific logic
128
Science relates to Mind, not matter. It
rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation. The
addition of two sums in mathematics must always bring the same result. So
is it with logic. If both the major and the minor propositions of a
syllogism are correct, the conclusion, if properly drawn, cannot be false.
So in Christian Science there are no discords nor contradictions, because
its logic is as harmonious as the reasoning of an accurately stated
syllogism or of a properly computed sum in arithmetic. Truth is ever
truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion.
Truth by inversion 129
If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you
can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro
or con, - be it in accord with your preconceptions or
utterly contrary to them.
Antagonistic theories 129
Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the
intelligence of matter, - a belief which Science overthrows. In those days
there will be "great tribulation such as was not since the beginning
of the world;" and earth will echo the cry, "Art thou [Truth]
come hither to torment us before the time?" Animal magnetism,
hypnotism, spiritualism, theosophy, agnosticism, pantheism, and infidelity
are antagonistic to true being and fatal to its demonstration; and so are
some other systems.
Ontology needed 129
We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up
ontology, - "the science of real being." We must look deep into
realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things. Can we
gather peaches from a pine-tree, or learn from discord the concord of
being? Yet quite as rational are some of the leading illusions along the
path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals.
The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.
Reluctant guests 129
The generous liver may object to the
author's small estimate of the pleasures of the table. The sinner sees, in
the system taught in this book, that the demands of God must be met. The
petty intellect is alarmed by constant appeals to Mind. The licentious
disposition is discouraged over its slight spiritual prospects. When all
men are bidden to the feast, the excuses come. One has a farm, another has
merchandise, and therefore they cannot accept.
Excuses for ignorance 130
It is vain to speak dishonestly of divine
Science, which destroys all discord, when you can demonstrate the
actuality of Science. It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect
harmony with God, divine Principle, - if Science, when understood and
demonstrated, will destroy all discord, - since you admit that God is
omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet
concords have all-power.
Children and adults 130
Christian Science, properly understood,
would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against
spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to
make place for truth. You cannot add to the contents of a vessel already
full. Laboring long to shake the adult's faith in matter and to inculcate
a grain of faith in God, - an inkling of the ability of Spirit to make the
body harmonious, - the author has often remembered our Master's love for
little children, and understood how truly such as they belong to the
heavenly kingdom.
All evil unnatural 130
If thought is startled at the strong claim
of Science for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of
good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims
of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and
unnatural to forsake it, - no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and
good absent? Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error,
and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so
real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be
governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine
Principle of all being.
The error of carnality 131
When once destroyed by divine Science, the
false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears. Hence the
opposition of sensuous man to the Science of Soul and the significance of
the Scripture, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." The
central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical
power.
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