Chapter XIV
465:1This chapter is from the first edition of the author’s class-book, copyrighted in 1870. After much labor 3and increased spiritual understanding, she revised that treatise for this volume in 1875. Absolute Christian Science pervades its statements, to elucidate scientific 6metaphysics.
Answer. — There is not. Principle and its idea is one, 18and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni‐466466:1present Being, and His reflection is man and the universe. Omni is adopted from the Latin adjective signifying all. 3Hence God combines all-power or potency, all-science or true knowledge, all-presence. The varied manifesta‐tions of Christian Science indicate Mind, never matter, 6and have one Principle.
Answer. — To human belief, they are personalities 9constituted of mind and matter, life and death, truth and Real versus unrealerror, good and evil; but these contrasting pairs of terms represent contraries, as Chris‐12tian Science reveals, which neither dwell together nor assimilate. Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth is limitless; error is limited. Truth is intelligent; error 15is 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 18most important to understand.
The term souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity and nothing else. 21Mankind redeemedThere is no finite soul nor spirit. Soul or Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish 24theology 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 27of 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 30its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually.
3Answer. — The first demand of this Science is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This me is Spirit. Two chief commandsTherefore the command means this: Thou shalt 6have 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.” 9It 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 12becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brother‐hood of man will be established. Having no other gods, turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide 15him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, hav‐ing that Mind which was also in Christ.
Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as not in the body, and 18God as not in man but as reflected by man. The greater Soul not confined in bodycannot be in the lesser. The belief that the greater can be in the lesser is an error that 21works 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 im‐24perfectly 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 27the 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, 30Sinlessness of Mind, Soulwe begin with Mind, which must be under‐stood through the idea which expresses it and cannot be learned from its opposite, matter. Thus we 468 468:1arrive at Truth, or intelligence, which evolves its own unerring idea and never can be coordinate with human 3illusions. If Soul sinned, it would be mortal, for sin is mortality’s self, because it kills itself. If Truth is im‐mortal, error must be mortal, because error is unlike 6Truth. Because Soul is immortal, Soul cannot sin, for sin is not the eternal verity of being.
9Answer. — There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor sub‐stance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal 12Truth; 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 15man is not material; he is spiritual.
Answer. — Substance is that which is eternal and inca‐18pable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are Spiritual synonymssubstance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: “The substance of things hoped 21for, 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 com‐24pound idea, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit.
Answer. — Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit. 27Eternity of LifeLife is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in 30proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite; 469 469:1eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of mat‐ter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which 3includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Mat‐ter is a human concept. Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life. If 6Life ever had a beginning, it would also have an ending.
Answer. — Mind is God. The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and 15True sense of infinitudethat the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind — called devil or evil — is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There 18can 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 21that 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 24space is filled with God.
We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when after admitting that God, or good, is omnipresent and 27The sole governorhas 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 30as are ancient mythology and pagan idolatry. With 470 470:1one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, 3the 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 6more 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 9unlikeness, and the loss of Love as ever present and universal.
Divine Science explains the abstract statement that 12there is one Mind by the following self-evident propo‐The divine standard of perfectionsition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can 15only 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, 18never sins? The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?
21 God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, Indestructible relationshipman, remains perfect. Man is the expression 24of God’s being. If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfec‐tion, then there was a moment when man did not express 27God, and consequently a time when Deity was unex‐pressed — that is, without entity. If man has lost per‐fection, then he has lost his perfect Principle, the divine 30Mind. 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 471 471:1idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine 3order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He cre‐ates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.
6 The unlikeness of Truth, — named error, — the op‐posite of Science, and the evidence before the five cor‐Celestial evidenceporeal senses, afford no indication of the grand 9facts 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 12propositions on the authority of natural science.
The facts of divine Science should be admitted, — although the evidence as to these facts is not supported 15by 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 re‐18flection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirit‐uality of the universe is the only fact of creation. “Let 21God be true, but every [material] man a liar.”
Answer. — The author subscribed to an orthodox 24creed in early youth, and tried to adhere to it until she The test of experiencecaught the first gleam of that which inter‐prets God as above mortal sense. This 27view rebuked human beliefs, and gave the spiritual im‐port, expressed through Science, of all that proceeds from the divine Mind. Since then her highest creed has 30been divine Science, which, reduced to human apprehen‐sion, she has named Christian Science. This Science 472 472:1teaches man that God is the only Life, and that this Life is Truth and Love; that God is to be understood, adored, 3and demonstrated; that divine Truth casts out supposi‐tional error and heals the sick.
The way which leads to Christian Science is straight 6and narrow. God has set His signet upon Science, mak‐God’s law destroys eviling it coordinate with all that is real and only with that which is harmonious and eternal. 9Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not originate in God nor belong to His government. His law, rightly understood, destroys them. Jesus furnished 12proofs of these statements.
Answer. — Error is a supposition that pleasure and 15pain, that intelligence, substance, life, are existent in mat‐Evanescent materialityter. Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind’s faculties. Error is the contradiction of Truth. 18Error 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 21have a self-evident absurdity — namely, erroneous truth. Thus we should continue to lose the standard of Truth.
24Answer. — All reality is in God and His creation, har‐monious and eternal. That which He creates is good, Unrealities that seem realand He makes all that is made. Therefore 27the 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 30true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian 473 473:1Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illu‐sion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming 3to 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 6Christ the ideal Truthto be classified as effects of error. Christ came to destroy the belief of sin. The God-principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. God is every‐9where, 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 12all 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 destroy‐15ing the power of death. Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ.
18 In an age of ecclesiastical despotism, Jesus introduced the teaching and practice of Christianity, affording the Jesus not Godproof of Christianity’s truth and love; but to 21reach his example and to test its unerring Sci‐ence according to his rule, healing sickness, sin, and death, a better understanding of God as divine Prin‐24ciple, Love, rather than personality or the man Jesus, is required.
Jesus established what he said by demonstration, 27thus making his acts of higher importance than his Jesus not understoodwords. He proved what he taught. This is the Science of Christianity. Jesus proved 30 the Principle, which heals the sick and casts out error, to be divine. Few, however, except his students un‐derstood in the least his teachings and their glorious 474 474:1proofs, — namely, that Life, Truth, and Love (the Prin‐ciple of this unacknowledged Science) destroy all error, 3evil, disease, and death.
The reception accorded to Truth in the early Chris‐tian era is repeated to-day. Whoever introduces the 6Miracles rejectedScience 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 9appears, Science seems to be a mistake, — hence the misinterpretation and consequent maltreatment which it receives. Christian marvels (and marvel is the sim‐12ple 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 15gained.
If sin, sickness, and death are as real as Life, Truth, and Love, then they must all be from the same source; 18Divine fulfilmentGod 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.” 21Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?
24 Despite the hallowing influence of Truth in the de‐struction of error, must error still be immortal? Truth Truth destroys falsity spares all that is true. If evil is real, Truth 27 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 30the 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 475 475:1darkness, and the Scripture declares that there is “no night there.” To Truth there is no error, — all is Truth. 3To infinite Spirit there is no matter, — all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea.
6Answer. — Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Fleshly factors unrealScriptures inform us that man is made in 9the 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 be‐12cause he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so under‐stood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of 15God, 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 18the 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 21possesses 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 24our 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 27creepeth upon the earth.”
Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The Man unfallenreal man cannot depart from holiness, nor 30can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not 476 476:1God’s man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil, 3which 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.
6 Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed. Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life Mortals are not immortalsand intelligence are in matter, and that 9this 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 im‐12mortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only and eternal verities of man. Mortals are not fallen chil‐dren of God. They never had a perfect state of being, 15which may subsequently be regained. They were, from the beginning of mortal history, “conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity.” Mortality is finally swallowed 18up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must dis‐appear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man.
21 Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood. Imperishable identityRemember that the Scriptures say of mortal 24man: “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 27know it no more.”
When speaking of God’s children, not the children of men, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you;” 30The kingdom withinthat 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 per‐477477:1fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour 3saw 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. 6Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.
9 Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but Material body never God’s ideaChristian Science reveals man as the idea of 12God, and declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science shows it to be impossible that a material body, though 15interwoven with matter’s highest stratum, misnamed mind, should be man, — the genuine and perfect man, the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal. 18Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.
Answer. — Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the re‐21flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Reflection of SpiritLove. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelli‐gence of man, which is individualized, but not 24in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.
Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught 27Man inseparable from Spiritsome glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake “the smile of the Great Spirit.” Separated from man, 30who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man, divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is, 478 478:1there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with God.
3 What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you within mortality? Even according to the teachings of A vacant domicilenatural science, man has never beheld Spirit 6 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 9the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a cer‐tain class of persons, when no such persons were ever seen to go into the house or to come out of it, nor were they 12even visible through the windows? Who can see a soul in the body?
Answer. — No, not if God is true and mortal man a liar. The assertion that there can be pain or pleasure 18Harmonious functionsin matter is erroneous. That body is most harmonious in which the discharge of the nat‐ural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence 21dwell 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 24belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material hu‐man beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which 27reflects 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.”
30 Mortal man is really a self-contradictory phrase, for man is not mortal, “neither indeed can be;” man is im‐479479:1mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit‐3Immortal birthrightual origin. With what truth, then, could the Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother, “I have gotten a man from the Lord”? On the con‐6trary, 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. 9An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is Matter’s supposed selfhoodall that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self-12cognizant, — cannot feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind, which constitutes matter’s supposed selfhood, and matter 15can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical senses?
18 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and Chaos and darknessdarkness was upon the face of the deep.” 21(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 24are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.
27 We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied identity or power, Spiritual reflectionbecause it has none of the divine hues. Paul 30says: “For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being under‐stood by the things that are made.” (Romans i. 20.) 480 480:1When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Sci‐ence, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where 3the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing, — the opposite of the some‐thing of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then 6there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace of heavenly tints.
Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa‐9tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation. Harmony from SpiritConsciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind, — is in God, the origin and gov‐12ernor 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 15Principle; 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 18attempting 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 oppo‐21Evil non-existentsite 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 24false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious parent of evil is a lie.
The Bible declares: “All things were made by Him 27 [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything Vapor and nothingnessmade that was made.” This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and 30death were understood as nothingness, they would dis‐appear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the 481 481:1other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing 3else. 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 6free “to enter into the holiest,” — the realm of God.
Material sense never helps mortals to understand Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man com‐9The fruit forbiddenprehends and loves Deity. The various con‐tradictions of the Science of Mind by the ma‐terial senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re‐12mains 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, 15and 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 18material 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 21then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the pro‐curers of all discord.
24 If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself. If sin is Sense and pure Soulsupported, God must uphold it, and this is 27impossible, 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 30it 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 substitu‐482482:1tion of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases.
3 Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the word soul through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil Soul definedand a good intelligence, resident in matter. 6The 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, 9 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 12sense, with material sensation.
15Answer. — It is, since Christ is “the way” and the truth casting out all error. Jesus called himself “the Sonship of JesusSon of man,” but not the son of Joseph. As 18woman 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 21Christ, the Messiah, — the divine idea of God outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his con‐trol over matter. Angels announced to the Wisemen of 24old 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. 27Error will not expel error. Christian Science is the law Sickness erroneousof Truth, which heals the sick on the basis of the one Mind or God. It can heal in no 30other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not a healer, but causes the belief in disease.
483483:1 Then comes the question, how do drugs, hygiene, and animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they 3True healing transcendentdo not heal, but only relieve suffering tempo‐rarily, exchanging one disease for another. We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or 6Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human. Mind transcends all other power, and will ultimately su‐persede all other means in healing. In order to heal by 9Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spir‐itual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral igno‐rance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its 12approach to the standard in Christian Science.
After the author’s sacred discovery, she affixed the name “Science” to Christianity, the name “error” to 15Terms adopted by the authorcorporeal sense, and the name “substance” to Mind. Science has called the world to battle over this issue and its demonstration, which 18heals the sick, destroys error, and reveals the universal harmony. To those natural Christian Scientists, the an‐cient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, God certainly revealed 21the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter.
Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dis‐honor the ordinary scientific schools, which wrestle with 24Science the waymaterial observations alone, this Science has met with opposition; but if any system honors God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all think‐27ing 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 30through 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 484 484:1will never be based on a divine Principle and so found to be unerring, until its absolute Science is reached. When 3this is accomplished, neither pride, prejudice, bigotry, nor envy can wash away its foundation, for it is built upon the rock, Christ.
6Question. — Does Christian Science, or metaphysical healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmer‐ism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism?
9Answer. — Not one of them is included in it. In di‐vine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the Mindless methodslaw of Mind. What are termed natural 12science and material laws are the objective states of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. 15Physical force and mortal mind are one. Drugs and hygiene oppose the supremacy of the divine Mind. Drugs and inert matter are unconscious, mindless. Cer‐18tain results, supposed to proceed from drugs, are really caused by the faith in them which the false human con‐sciousness is educated to feel.
21 Mesmerism is mortal, material illusion. Animal mag‐netism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error Animal magnetism errorin all its forms; it is the human antipode 24of divine Science. Science must triumph over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories 27and practices.
Question. — Is materiality the concomitant of spirit‐uality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to 30the understanding and expression of Spirit?
485485:1Answer. — If error is necessary to define or to reveal Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise. Material 3 senseError only ephemeral is an absurd phrase, for matter has no sensation. Science declares that Mind, not matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts 6this statement is the false sense, which ever betrays mortals into sickness, sin, and death. If the unimpor‐tant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because 9of their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephem‐eral views of error ought to be obliterated by Truth. Why malign Christian Science for instructing mortals how 12to make sin, disease, and death appear more and more unreal?
Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not 15to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come Scientific translationsnaturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth. 18Not death, but the understanding of Life, makes man im‐mortal. The belief that life can be in matter or soul in body, and that man springs from dust or from an egg, 21is 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 24is 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, 27called disease and sin.
The heathen gods of mythology controlled war and agriculture as much as nerves control sensation or 30Material beliefsmuscles 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 intelli‐486486:1gence in matter is without foundation in fact, and you can have no faith in falsehood when you have learned 3falsehood’s true nature.
Suppose one accident happens to the eye, another to the ear, and so on, until every corporeal sense is quenched. 6Sense versus Soul 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 9possess 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 12scientific 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 15was the same immediately after death as before. If death Death an errorrestores sight, sound, and strength to man, then death is not an enemy but a better friend 18than 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 21as this error of belief remains, mortals will continue mor‐tal in belief and subject to chance and change.
Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are 24eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immor‐Permanent sensibilitytality are in Spirit and understanding, not in matter, — hence their permanence. If this 27were 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 30would 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 487 487:1drive mortals to seek and to find a higher sense of happi‐ness and existence.
3 Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walk‐Exercise of Mind-facultiesing in the pathway of Truth both before and 6after that which is called death. There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than materially. There is more Science in the perpetual 9exercise 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 cen‐12turies ago, and it will repeat the wonder.
15Answer. — Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the need of believing. Matter cannot believe, and Mind Understanding versus belief understands. The body cannot believe. The 18believer and belief are one and are mortal. Christian evidence is founded on Science or demonstrable Truth, flowing from immortal Mind, and 21there is in reality no such thing as mortal mind. Mere belief is blindness without Principle from which to ex‐plain the reason of its hope. The belief that life is sen‐24tient 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.” 27The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.
30 This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the 488 488:1enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result of our teachings is their sufficient confirmation. When, 3Confirmation by healingon the strength of these instructions, you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that you understand this teaching, and therefore you re‐6ceive the blessing of Truth.
The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the 9Belief and firm trustEnglish verb believe; they have more the sig‐nificance of faith, understanding, trust, con‐stancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in 12our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.
Answer. — Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines 18All faculties from Mindthese 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 21cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief be‐stows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. Mind alone 24possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension. Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of organization and decomposition, — otherwise the very 27worms 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 dis‐30turbed nor destroyed, since they exist in immortal Mind, not in matter.
489489:1 The less mind there is manifested in matter the better. When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows 3Possibilities of Lifeagain. 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 6human 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 9is 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 12everlasting Life.
Corporeal sense defrauds and lies; it breaks all the commands of the Mosaic Decalogue to meet its own de‐15Decalogue disregardedmands. How then can this sense be the God-given channel to man of divine blessings or understanding? How can man, reflecting God, be de‐18pendent 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 me‐21dium for obeying God? An affirmative reply would con‐tradict the Scripture, for the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet waters and bitter.
24 The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, be‐Organic construction valuelesscause matter has no sensation, and no organic 27construction 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 30of 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 490 490:1is real pleasure in sin; but the grand truths of Christian Science dispute this error.
3 Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an Will-power an animal propensityanimal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. 6Hence it cannot govern man aright. Chris‐tian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will — blind, stubborn, and head‐9long — cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its pow‐erlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.
12 The Science of Mind needs to be understood. Until it is understood, mortals are more or less deprived of Theories helplessTruth. Human theories are helpless to make 15man 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 di‐18vine Principle, Love.
“Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings.” Human belief — or knowledge gained from the so-called 21True nature and originmaterial senses — would, by fair logic, anni‐hilate man along with the dissolving elements of clay. The scientifically Christian explanations of the 24nature 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 27in no other way.
Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical nature of material sense. Sleep shows material sense as either 30Sleep an illusionoblivion, 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 491 491:1is swimming when he is on dry land. Needle-thrusts will not hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable. 3Animal magnetism thus uncovers material sense, and shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or va‐lidity. Change the belief, and the sensation changes. 6Destroy 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 9Man linked with Spiritcalling itself right. Man’s spiritual individual‐ity is never wrong. It is the likeness of man’s Maker. Matter cannot connect mortals with the true 12origin 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 15find 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 mat‐18ter is awake at one time and asleep at another, some‐Material man as a dreamtimes presenting no appearance of mind, — this belief culminates in another belief, that 21man 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 24lost from the body, and they wander whither they will apparently with their own separate embodiment. Per‐sonality is not the individuality of man. A wicked man 27may have an attractive personality.
When we are awake, we dream of the pains and pleas‐Spiritual existence the one factures of matter. Who will say, even though he 30does not understand Christian Science, that this dream — rather than the dreamer — may not be mortal man? Who can rationally say otherwise, 492 492:1when the dream leaves mortal man intact in body and thought, although the so-called dreamer is unconscious? 3For 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 6unlikeness, mortality.
Being is holiness, harmony, immortality. It is already proved that a knowledge of this, even in small degree, 9Mind one and allwill uplift the physical and moral standard of mortals, will increase longevity, will purify and elevate character. Thus progress will finally destroy 12all 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 15contradictory theories — that matter is something, or that all is Mind — will dispute the ground, until one is acknowledged to be the victor. Discussing his cam‐18paign, 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 21line. Matter can afford you no aid.
The notion that mind and matter commingle in the human illusion as to sin, sickness, and death must even‐24Scientific ultimatumtually 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 27Science of being, and the Principle of this Science is di‐vine, demonstrating harmony and immortality.
The conservative theory, long believed, is that there 30are two factors, matter and mind, uniting on some im‐possible basis. This theory would keep truth and error always at war. Victory would perch on neither banner. 493 493:1On the other hand, Christian Science speedily shows Truth to be triumphant. To corporeal sense, the sun 3Victory for Truthappears to rise and set, and the earth to stand still; but astronomical science contradicts this, and explains the solar system as working on a differ‐6ent 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.
Answer. — The method of Christian Science Mind-heal‐12ing is touched upon in a previous chapter entitled Christian Mental preparationScience Practice. A full answer to the above question involves teaching, which enables the 15healer 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 18five corporeal senses, and able to destroy all ills. Sick‐Mind destroys all illsness is a belief, which must be annihilated by the divine Mind. Disease is an experience of 21so-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 24mental inharmony. That man is material, and that mat‐ter suffers, — these propositions can only seem real and natural in illusion. Any sense of soul in matter is not the 27reality of being.
If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false 30sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever 494 494:1intact in his perfect state, and to govern man’s entire action? Jesus said: “Destroy this temple [body], and 3in 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 6a work as the Messiah’s was done for himself or for God, Inexhaustible divine Lovewho needed no help from Jesus’ example to preserve the eternal harmony? But mortals 9did 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 demon‐12strated 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.
15 The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the Reason and Scienceinfinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring 18human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science. Reason, rightly di‐rected, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but 21sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the ex‐periences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Sci‐ence of man’s eternal harmony breaks their illusion with 24the unbroken reality of scientific being.
Which of these two theories concerning man are you ready to accept? One is the mortal testimony, changing, 27dying, unreal. The other is the eternal and real evidence, bearing Truth’s signet, its lap piled high with immortal fruits.
30 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. 495 495:1God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is Followers of Jesusgoverned by God. Truth casts out error now 3as surely as it did nineteen centuries ago. All of Truth is not understood; hence its healing power is not fully demonstrated.
6 If sickness is true or the idea of Truth, you cannot destroy sickness, and it would be absurd to try. Then Destruction of all evilclassify sickness and error as our Master did, 9when 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 12which 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 15steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His Steadfast and calm trust likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and 18calm 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, 21instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence dis‐24cord with harmony.
27Answer. — Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit. Adhere to the divine Principle of Chris‐Rudiments and growthtian Science and follow the behests of God, 30abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love. In the Science of Mind, you will soon ascertain 496 496:1that error cannot destroy error. You will also learn that in Science there is no transfer of evil suggestions 3from 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 6that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself.
9 We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good? Condition of progressAm I demonstrating the healing power of 12Truth 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. 15Hold 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, 18based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, over‐lying, and encompassing all true being.
“The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is 21the law,” — the law of mortal belief, at war with the Triumph over deathfacts of immortal Life, even with the spiritual law which says to the grave, “Where is thy 24victory?” But “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on im‐mortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that 27is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
30Answer. — They have not, if by that term is meant doctrinal beliefs. The following is a brief exposition of 497 497:1the important points, or religious tenets, of Christian Science: —
3 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 in‐6finite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.
9 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 pun‐12ished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus’ atonement as the evi‐dence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man’s unity 15with 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 18Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and 21his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eter‐nal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the noth‐ingness of matter.
24 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 27to be merciful, just, and pure.