24    The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, — that is, the eternal ver‐Ideas and identitiesity and unity of God and man, including 27the universe. The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This crea‐503503:1tion consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and 3forever reflected. These ideas range from the infini‐tesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.

9    The divine Principle and idea constitute spiritual har‐mony, — heaven and eternity. In the universe of Truth, Spiritual harmonymatter is unknown. No supposition of error 12enters there. Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, “God is All-in-all,” and the light of ever-present Love illumines 15the universe. Hence the eternal wonder, — that infinite space is peopled with God’s ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.

    Immortal and divine Mind presents the idea of God: 21first, in light; second, in reflection; third, in spiritual and Mind’s idea faultlessimmortal forms of beauty and goodness. But this Mind creates no element nor symbol of 24discord and decay. God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.

    God, Spirit, dwelling in infinite light and harmony 504 504:1from which emanates the true idea, is never reflected by aught but the good.

6    All questions as to the divine creation being both spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for Light preceding the sunthough solar beams are not yet included in 9the record of creation, still there is light. This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This 12also shows that there is no place where God’s light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present. Was not this a revelation instead of a 15creation?

    The successive appearing of God’s ideas is represented as taking place on so many evenings and mornings, — 18Evenings and morningswords which indicate, in the absence of solar time, spiritually clearer views of Him, views which are not implied by material darkness and dawn. 21Here we have the explanation of another passage of Scripture, that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into 24the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence.

27    Did infinite Mind create matter, and call it light? Spirit is light, and the contradiction of Spirit is matter, Spirit versus darknessdarkness, and darkness obscures light. Mate‐30rial sense is nothing but a supposition of the absence of Spirit. No solar rays nor planetary revolutions 505 505:1form the day of Spirit. Immortal Mind makes its own record, but mortal mind, sleep, dreams, sin, disease, and 3death have no record in the first chapter of Genesis.

    Spiritual understanding, by which human conception, material sense, is separated from Truth, is the firmament. 9Spiritual firmamentThe divine Mind, not matter, creates all iden‐tities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter 12nor the so-called material senses.

    Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts con‐sciousness and leads into all truth. The Psalmist saith: 18Understanding imparted“The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” Spiritual sense is the discernment of spiritual 21good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind, — Life, Truth, and Love, — and demonstrates the 24divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science.

    This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result 27of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things Original reflectedbrought to light. God’s ideas reflect the im‐mortal, unerring, and infinite. The mortal, 30erring, and finite are human beliefs, which apportion to 506 506:1themselves a task impossible for them, that of distinguish‐ing between the false and the true. Objects utterly un‐3like the original do not reflect that original. Therefore matter, not being the reflection of Spirit, has no real en‐tity. Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which 6separates Christian Science from supposition and makes Truth final.

    Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites under‐standing to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted 12Exalted thoughtthought or spiritual apprehension is at peace. Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress.

18    Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their Unfolding of thoughtsproper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose 21in order that the purpose may appear.

    Here the human concept and divine idea seem con‐fused by the translator, but they are not so in the scien‐27Spirit names and blessestifically Christian meaning of the text. Upon Adam devolved the pleasurable task of find‐ing names for all material things, but Adam has not yet 507 507:1appeared in the narrative. In metaphor, the dry land illustrates the absolute formations instituted by Mind, 3while water symbolizes the elements of Mind. Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of spiritual creation, thus tenderly expressing the father‐6hood and motherhood of God. Spirit names and blesses all. Without natures particularly defined, objects and subjects would be obscure, and creation would be full of 9nameless offspring, — wanderers from the parent Mind, strangers in a tangled wilderness.

15    The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power of the divine Principle, or Life, which reproduces the multi‐Divine propagationtudinous forms of Mind and governs the mul‐18tiplication of the compound idea man. The tree and herb do not yield fruit because of any propagat‐ing power of their own, but because they reflect the Mind 21 which includes all. A material world implies a mortal mind and man a creator. The scientific divine creation declares immortal Mind and the universe created by God.

24    Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the men‐tal molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all Ever-appearing creationexpresses Science and art throughout His 27 creation, and the immortality of man and the universe. Creation is ever appearing, and must ever con‐tinue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. 30Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas mate‐rial. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall 508 508:1to the level of a human or material belief, called mortal man. But the seed is in itself, only as the divine Mind 3 is All and reproduces all — as Mind is the multiplier, and Mind’s infinite idea, man and the universe, is the product. The only intelligence or substance of a thought, 6a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it. Mind is the Soul of all. Mind is Life, Truth, and Love which gov‐erns all.

    God determines the gender of His own ideas. Gen‐der is mental, not material. The seed within itself is 15Mind’s pure thoughtthe pure thought emanating from divine Mind. The feminine gender is not yet ex‐pressed in the text. Gender means simply kind or sort, 18 and does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or femininity. The word is not confined to sexuality, and grammars always recognize a neuter gender, neither 21male nor female. The Mind or intelligence of produc‐tion names the female gender last in the ascending order of creation. The intelligent individual idea, be it male 24or female, rising from the lesser to the greater, unfolds the infinitude of Love.

    The third stage in the order of Christian Science is an important one to the human thought, letting in the light 509 509:1of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of 3Rising to the lightall, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent upon no material organization. Our Master reappeared to his students, — to their apprehension he 6rose from the grave, — on the third day of his ascending thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of eternal Life.

    Spirit creates no other than heavenly or celestial bodies, but the stellar universe is no more celestial than our earth. 15Rarefaction of thoughtThis text gives the idea of the rarefaction of thought as it ascends higher. God forms and peoples the universe. The light of spiritual understand‐18ing gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulæ indi‐cate the immensity of space.

    So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances 21are no more contingent now on time or material struc‐Divine nature appearingture than they were when “the morning stars sang together.” Mind made the “plant of 24the field before it was in the earth.” The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind’s creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness 27 — yea, the divine nature — appear in man and the uni‐verse never to disappear.

    Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind 30 and its ideas, Jesus rebuked the material thought of his fellow-countrymen: “Ye can discern the face of the 510 510:1sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” How much more should we seek to apprehend the spirit‐3Spiritual ideas apprehendedual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual.

9    Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose “light shall we see light;” and this illumination is re‐flected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn 12away from a false material sense.

    The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul out‐side the body, giving existence and intelligence to the 18Geology a failureuniverse. Love alone can impart the limit‐less idea of infinite Mind. Geology has never explained the earth’s formations; it cannot explain them. 21There is no Scriptural allusion to solar light until time has been already divided into evening and morning; and the allusion to fluids (Genesis i. 2) indicates a supposed for‐24mation of matter by the resolving of fluids into solids, analogous to the suppositional resolving of thoughts into material things.

27    Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, Spiritual subdivisionand not a vitalizing property of matter. Sci‐ence reveals only one Mind, and this one shin‐30ing by its own light and governing the universe, including 511 511:1man, in perfect harmony. This Mind forms ideas, its own images, subdivides and radiates their borrowed light, 3intelligence, and so explains the Scripture phrase, “whose seed is in itself.” Thus God’s ideas “multiply and re‐plenish the earth.” The divine Mind supports the sub‐6limity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation.

    In divine Science, which is the seal of Deity and has 12Darkness scatteredthe impress of heaven, God is revealed as in‐finite light. In the eternal Mind, no night is there.

    The changing glow and full effulgence of God’s infi‐18nite ideas, images, mark the periods of progress.

    To mortal mind, the universe is liquid, solid, and aëri‐24form. Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand Soaring aspirationsfor solid and grand ideas. Animals and mor‐tals metaphorically present the gradation of 27mortal thought, rising in the scale of intelligence, taking form in masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament 512 512:1of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal 3and divine Principle, Love.

    Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, 9and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These an‐Seraphic symbolsgels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of 12Mind, and consequently reproduce their own character‐istics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God’s nature; and 15spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.

    Spirit blesses the multiplication of its own pure and 21perfect ideas. From the infinite elements of the one Multiplication of pure ideasMind emanate all form, color, quality, and quantity, and these are mental, both primarily 24and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses. Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its 27own misconceptions. Ignorant of the origin and opera‐tions of mortal mind, — that is, ignorant of itself, — this so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and claims 30God as their author; albeit God is ignorant of the ex‐513513:1istence of both this mortal mentality, so-called, and its claim, for the claim usurps the deific prerogatives and is 3an attempted infringement on infinity.

6    Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings. To Spiritual spheresmaterial sense, this divine universe is dim and 9distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light. In the record, time is not yet measured by solar revolutions, 12and the motions and reflections of deific power cannot be apprehended until divine Science becomes the interpreter.

    Spirit diversifies, classifies, and individualizes all 18Continuity of thoughtsthoughts, which are as eternal as the Mind conceiving them; but the intelligence, exist‐ence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, 21who is the divinely creative Principle thereof.

    God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are 27spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind — being non-existent and consequently not within the range of im‐514514:1mortal existence — could not by simulating deific power invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate per‐3God’s thoughts are spiritual realitiessons or things upon its own plane, since noth‐ing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is the 6sole creator. Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind’s infinite ideas run and dis‐port themselves. In humility they climb the heights of 9holiness.

    Moral courage is “the lion of the tribe of Juda,” the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in 12Qualities of thoughtthe forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in “green pastures, . . . beside the still waters.” In the figurative transmission from the 15divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to “the cattle upon a thousand hills.” They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and 18keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompa‐nies all the might imparted by Spirit. The individ‐uality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the 21millennial estate pictured by Isaiah: —  The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, And the leopard shall lie down with the kid; 24And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them.

    Understanding the control which Love held over all, 27Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den, and Paul proved the Creatures of God usefulviper to be harmless. All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harm‐30less, useful, indestructible. A realization of this grand verity was a source of strength to the ancient worthies. 515 515:1It supports Christian healing, and enables its possessor to emulate the example of Jesus. “And God saw that 3it was good.”

    Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping over lofty summits, persevering in its intent. The ser‐6The serpent harmlesspent of God’s creating is neither subtle nor poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its adroitness, for Love’s ideas are subject to the Mind which 9forms them, — the power which changeth the serpent into a staff.

    The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe. The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of 18Elohistic pluralitySpirit does not imply more than one God, nor does it imply three persons in one. It relates to the oneness, the tri-unity of Life, Truth, and Love. 21“Let them have dominion.” Man is the family name for all ideas, — the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting good‐24ness and power.

    Your mirrored reflection is your own image or like‐ness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. 27Reflected likenessIf you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror 30divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note 516 516:1how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in 3the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God. The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; 6and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere.

9    God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in Love imparts beautygoodness, which impart their own peace and 12permanence. Love, redolent with unselfish‐ness, bathes all in beauty and light. The grass beneath our feet silently exclaims, “The meek shall inherit the 15earth.” The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath to heaven. The great rock gives shadow and shelter. The sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the 18prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the landscape, blesses the earth. Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God’s domin‐21ion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.

27    To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the Ideal man and womandivine Spirit. It follows that man is a generic 30term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter gen‐ders are human concepts. In one of the ancient lan‐517517:1guages the word for man is used also as the synonym of mind. This definition has been weakened by anthropo‐3morphism, or a humanization of Deity. The word an‐thropomorphic, in such a phrase as “an anthropomorphic God,” is derived from two Greek words, signifying man 6 and form, and may be defined as a mortally mental at‐tempt to reduce Deity to corporeality. The life-giving quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter. The ideal man 9corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for con‐12sidering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.

15    The world believes in many persons; but if God is per‐sonal, there is but one person, because there is but one Divine personalityGod. His personality can only be reflected, 18not transmitted. God has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage. The only proper symbol of God as person is Mind’s infinite ideal. 21What is this ideal? Who shall behold it? This ideal is God’s own image, spiritual and infinite. Even eternity can never reveal the whole of God, since there is no limit 24to infinitude or to its reflections.

30    Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, — to manifest His power. Man is not made 518 518:1to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not sub‐Birthright of manjection. He is lord of the belief in earth 3and heaven, — himself subordinate alone to his Maker. This is the Science of being.

    God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the 15Assistance in brotherhoodlower. The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth 18his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another’s good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through 21all as the blossom shines through the bud. All the varied expressions of God reflect health, holiness, immortality — infinite Life, Truth, and Love.

27    The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and ex‐presses all, and all must therefore be as perfect as the divine Principle is perfect. Nothing is new to Spirit. 519 519:1Nothing can be novel to eternal Mind, the author of all things, who from all eternity knoweth His own ideas. 3Perfection of creationDeity was satisfied with His work. How could He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self-6containment and immortal wisdom?

9    Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and Infinity measurelessthe fatherhood and motherhood of Love. Hu‐12man capacity is slow to discern and to grasp God’s creation and the divine power and presence which go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin. Mortals 15can never know the infinite, until they throw off the old man and reach the spiritual image and likeness. What can fathom infinity! How shall we declare Him, till, 18in the language of the apostle, “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful‐21ness of Christ”?

    God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, Resting in holy workcan never impoverish, the divine Mind. No 27exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science. The 520 520:1highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work.

3    Unfathomable Mind is expressed. The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all Love and man coexistentspace. That is enough! Human language 6can repeat only an infinitesimal part of what exists. The absolute ideal, man, is no more seen nor comprehended by mortals, than is his infinite Principle, 9Love. Principle and its idea, man, are coexistent and eternal. The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can never be reckoned according to the calendar of time. 12These days will appear as mortality disappears, and they will reveal eternity, newness of Life, in which all sense of error forever disappears and thought accepts the divine 15infinite calculus.

    Here is the emphatic declaration that God creates all 24through Mind, not through matter, — that the plant Growth is from Mindgrows, not because of seed or soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind. Mor‐27tal thought drops into the ground, but the immortal creat‐ing thought is from above, not from beneath. Because Mind makes all, there is nothing left to be made by a 30lower power. Spirit acts through the Science of Mind, never causing man to till the ground, but making him 521 521:1superior to the soil. Knowledge of this lifts man above the sod, above earth and its environments, to conscious 3spiritual harmony and eternal being.

    Here the inspired record closes its narrative of being that is without beginning or end. All that is made is 6Spiritual narrativethe work of God, and all is good. We leave this brief, glorious history of spiritual creation (as stated in the first chapter of Genesis) in the hands of 9God, not of man, in the keeping of Spirit, not matter, — joyfully acknowledging now and forever God’s supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

12    The harmony and immortality of man are intact. We should look away from the opposite supposition that man is created materially, and turn our gaze to the spiritual 15record of creation, to that which should be engraved on the understanding and heart “with the point of a diamond” and the pen of an angel.

    The Science and truth of the divine creation have been 24presented in the verses already considered, and now the The story of erroropposite error, a material view of creation, is to be set forth. The second chapter of Gene‐27sis contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded. The history of error 30or matter, if veritable, would set aside the omnipotence 522 522:1of Spirit; but it is the false history in contradistinction to the true.

3    The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are The two recordsantagonistic. The first record assigns all 6might and government to God, and endows man out of God’s perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, — as hav‐9ing broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

12    This second record unmistakably gives the history of error in its externalized forms, called life and intelli‐gence in matter. It records pantheism, opposed to the 15supremacy of divine Spirit; but this state of things is declared to be temporary and this man to be mortal, — dust returning to dust.

18    In this erroneous theory, matter takes the place of Spirit. Matter is represented as the life-giving principle of the Erroneous representationearth. Spirit is represented as entering mat‐21ter in order to create man. God’s glowing denunciations of man when not found in His image, the likeness of Spirit, convince reason and coincide 24with revelation in declaring this material creation false.

    This latter part of the second chapter of Genesis, which portrays Spirit as supposedly cooperating with matter in 27Hypothetical reversalconstructing the universe, is based on some hypothesis of error, for the Scripture just pre‐ceding declares God’s work to be finished. Does Life, 30Truth, and Love produce death, error, and hatred? Does the creator condemn His own creation? Does the un‐erring Principle of divine law change or repent? It can‐523523:1not be so. Yet one might so judge from an unintelligent perusal of the Scriptural account now under comment.

3    Because of its false basis, the mist of obscurity evolved by error deepens the false claim, and finally declares that Mist, or false claimGod knows error and that error can improve 6His creation. Although presenting the exact opposite of Truth, the lie claims to be truth. The crea‐tions of matter arise from a mist or false claim, or from 9mystification, and not from the firmament, or under‐standing, which God erects between the true and false. In error everything comes from beneath, not from above. 12All is material myth, instead of the reflection of Spirit.

    It may be worth while here to remark that, according 15to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two dis‐Distinct documentstinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis. One is called the Elohistic, because 18the Supreme Being is therein called Elohim. The other document is called the Jehovistic, because Deity therein is always called Jehovah, — or Lord God, as our common 21version translates it.

    Throughout the first chapter of Genesis and in three verses of the second, — in what we understand to be the 24Jehovah or Elohimspiritually scientific account of creation, — it is Elohim (God) who creates. From the fourth verse of chapter two to chapter five, the creator is called 27Jehovah, or the Lord. The different accounts become more and more closely intertwined to the end of chapter twelve, after which the distinction is not definitely trace‐30able. In the historic parts of the Old Testament, it is usually Jehovah, peculiarly the divine sovereign of the Hebrew people, who is referred to.

524

524:1    The idolatry which followed this material mythology is seen in the Phœnician worship of Baal, in the Moabitish 3Gods of the heathengod Chemosh, in the Moloch of the Amorites, in the Hindoo Vishnu, in the Greek Aphro‐dite, and in a thousand other so-called deities.

6    It was also found among the Israelites, who constantly went after “strange gods.” They called the Supreme Jehovah a tribal deity Being by the national name of Jehovah. In 9that name of Jehovah, the true idea of God seems almost lost. God becomes “a man of war,” a tribal god to be worshipped, rather than Love, the divine 12Principle to be lived and loved.

    Did the divine and infinite Principle become a finite deity, that He should now be called Jehovah? With 18Creation reverseda single command, Mind had made man, both male and female. How then could a material organization become the basis of man? How 21could the non-intelligent become the medium of Mind, and error be the enunciator of Truth? Matter is not the reflection of Spirit, yet God is reflected in all His 24 creation. Is this addition to His creation real or un‐real? Is it the truth, or is it a lie concerning man and God?

27    It must be a lie, for God presently curses the ground. Could Spirit evolve its opposite, matter, and give matter ability to sin and suffer? Is Spirit, God, injected into 30dust, and eventually ejected at the demand of matter? Does Spirit enter dust, and lose therein the divine nature 525 525:1and omnipotence? Does Mind, God, enter matter to be‐come there a mortal sinner, animated by the breath of 3God? In this narrative, the validity of matter is opposed, not the validity of Spirit or Spirit’s creations. Man re‐flects God; mankind represents the Adamic race, and is 6a human, not a divine, creation.

    The following are some of the equivalents of the term man in different languages. In the Saxon, mankind, a 9 woman, any one;Definitions of man in the Welsh, that which rises up, — the primary sense being image, form; in the Hebrew, image, similitude; in the Icelandic, mind. 12The following translation is from the Icelandic: — 

    In the Gospel of John, it is declared that all things were 18made through the Word of God, “and without Him [the No baneful creationlogos, or word] was not anything made that was made.” Everything good or worthy, God 21made. Whatever is valueless or baneful, He did not make, — hence its unreality. In the Science of Genesis we read that He saw everything which He had made, 24“and, behold, it was very good.” The corporeal senses declare otherwise; and if we give the same heed to the history of error as to the records of truth, the Scriptural 27record of sin and death favors the false conclusion of the material senses. Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God.

3    The previous and more scientific record of creation declares that God made “every plant of the field be‐Contradicting first creationfore it was in the earth.” This opposite 6declaration, this statement that life issues from matter, contradicts the teaching of the first chap‐ter, — namely, that all Life is God. Belief is less than 9understanding. Belief involves theories of material hear‐ing, sight, touch, taste, and smell, termed the five senses. The appetites and passions, sin, sickness, and death, 12follow in the train of this error of a belief in intelligent matter.

    The first mention of evil is in the legendary Scriptural 15text in the second chapter of Genesis. God pronounced Record of errorgood all that He created, and the Scriptures declare that He created all. The “tree of 18life” stands for the idea of Truth, and the sword which guards it is the type of divine Science. The “tree of knowledge” stands for the erroneous doctrine that the 21knowledge of evil is as real, hence as God-bestowed, as the knowledge of good. Was evil instituted through God, Love? Did He create this fruit-bearer of sin in contra‐24diction of the first creation? This second biblical account is a picture of error throughout.

    The name Eden, according to Cruden, means pleasure, 30 delight. In this text Eden stands for the mortal, mate‐527527:1rial body. God could not put Mind into matter nor in‐Garden of Edenfinite Spirit into finite form to dress it and 3keep it, — to make it beautiful or to cause it to live and grow. Man is God’s reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete.

    Here the metaphor represents God, Love, as tempting 12man, but the Apostle James says: “God cannot be No temptation from Godtempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.” It is true that a knowledge of evil would 15make man mortal. It is plain also that mate‐rial perception, gathered from the corporeal senses, consti‐tutes evil and mortal knowledge. But is it true that God, 18good, made “the tree of life” to be the tree of death to His own creation? Has evil the reality of good? Evil is un‐real because it is a lie, — false in every statement.

    Here the lie represents God as repeating creation, but 27Creation’s counterfeitdoing so materially, not spiritually, and ask‐ing a prospective sinner to help Him. Is the Supreme Being retrograding, and is man giving up his 30dignity? Was it requisite for the formation of man 528 528:1that dust should become sentient, when all being is the reflection of the eternal Mind, and the record declares 3that God has already created man, both male and female? That Adam gave the name and nature of animals, is solely mythological and material. It can‐6not be true that man was ordered to create man anew in partnership with God; this supposition was a dream, a myth.

15    Here falsity, error, credits Truth, God, with inducing a sleep or hypnotic state in Adam in order to perform a Hypnotic surgerysurgical operation on him and thereby create 18woman. This is the first record of magnet‐ism. Beginning creation with darkness instead of light,  — materially rather than spiritually, — error now simu‐21lates the work of Truth, mocking Love and declar‐ing what great things error has done. Beholding the creations of his own dream and calling them real and 24God-given, Adam — alias error — gives them names. Afterwards he is supposed to become the basis of the creation of woman and of his own kind, calling them 27mankind, — that is, a kind of man.

    But according to this narrative, surgery was first per‐Mental midwiferyformed mentally and without instruments; 30and this may be a useful hint to the medical faculty. Later in human history, when the forbidden 529 529:1fruit was bringing forth fruit of its own kind, there came a suggestion of change in the modus operandi, — 3that man should be born of woman, not woman again taken from man. It came about, also, that instruments were needed to assist the birth of mortals. The first 6system of suggestive obstetrics has changed. Another change will come as to the nature and origin of man, and this revelation will destroy the dream of existence, 9reinstate reality, usher in Science and the glorious fact of creation, that both man and woman proceed from God and are His eternal children, belonging to no lesser 12parent.

21    Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine Love? The serpent enters into the Mythical serpentmetaphor only as evil. We have nothing in the 24animal kingdom which represents the species described, — a talking serpent, — and should rejoice that evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and 27has neither origin nor support in Truth and good. Seeing this, we should have faith to fight all claims of evil, be‐cause we know that they are worthless and unreal.

30    Adam, the synonym for error, stands for a belief of material mind. He begins his reign over man some‐530530:1what mildly, but he increases in falsehood and his days Error or Adambecome shorter. In this development, the im‐3mortal, spiritual law of Truth is made manifest as forever opposed to mortal, material sense.

    In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine 6Principle of being. The earth, at God’s command, brings Divine providenceforth food for man’s use. Knowing this, Jesus once said, “Take no thought for your life, 9what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink,” — presuming not on the prerogative of his creator, but recognizing God, the Father and Mother of all, as able to feed and clothe 12man as He doth the lilies.

    This myth represents error as always asserting its su‐18periority over truth, giving the lie to divine Science and Error’s assumptionsaying, through the material senses: “I can open your eyes. I can do what God has not 21done for you. Bow down to me and have another god. Only admit that I am real, that sin and sense are more pleasant to the eyes than spiritual Life, more to be de‐24sired than Truth, and I shall know you, and you will be mine.” Thus Spirit and flesh war.

    The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream 27has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the Scriptural allegorydreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. First, this narrative supposes 30that something springs from nothing, that matter pre‐cedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter, 531 531:1and matter becomes living, substantial, and intelligent. The order of this allegory — the belief that everything 3springs from dust instead of from Deity — has been main‐tained in all the subsequent forms of belief. This is the error, — that mortal man starts materially, that non-6intelligence becomes intelligence, that mind and soul are both right and wrong.

    It is well that the upper portions of the brain represent 9the higher moral sentiments, as if hope were ever prophe‐Higher hopesying thus: The human mind will sometime rise above all material and physical sense, ex‐12changing it for spiritual perception, and exchanging hu‐man concepts for the divine consciousness. Then man will recognize his God-given dominion and being.

15    If, in the beginning, man’s body originated in non-intelligent dust, and mind was afterwards put into body Biological inventionsby the creator, why is not this divine order 18still maintained by God in perpetuating the species? Who will say that minerals, vegetables, and animals have a propagating property of their own? 21Who dares to say either that God is in matter or that matter exists without God? Has man sought out other creative inventions, and so changed the method of his 24Maker?

    Which institutes Life, — matter or Mind? Does Life begin with Mind or with matter? Is Life sustained by 27matter or by Spirit? Certainly not by both, since flesh wars against Spirit and the corporeal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit. The mythologic theory of mate‐30rial life at no point resembles the scientifically Christian record of man as created by Mind in the image and like‐ness of God and having dominion over all the earth. Did 532 532:1God at first create one man unaided, — that is, Adam, — but afterwards require the union of the two sexes in order 3to create the rest of the human family? No! God makes and governs all.

    All human knowledge and material sense must be 6gained from the five corporeal senses. Is this knowledge Progeny cursedsafe, when eating its first fruits brought death? “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 9surely die,” was the prediction in the story under consid‐eration. Adam and his progeny were cursed, not blessed; and this indicates that the divine Spirit, or Father, con‐12demns material man and remands him to dust.

    Knowledge and pleasure, evolved through material 18sense, produced the immediate fruits of fear and shame. Shame the effect of sinAshamed before Truth, error shrank abashed from the divine voice calling out to the cor‐21poreal senses. Its summons may be thus paraphrased: “Where art thou, man? Is Mind in matter? Is Mind capable of error as well as of truth, of evil as well as of 24good, when God is All and He is Mind and there is but one God, hence one Mind?”

    Fear was the first manifestation of the error of mate‐27rial sense. Thus error began and will end the dream of Fear comes of errormatter. In the allegory the body had been naked, and Adam knew it not; but now error 30demands that mind shall see and feel through matter, the five senses. The first impression material man had of 533 533:1himself was one of nakedness and shame. Had he lost man’s rich inheritance and God’s behest, dominion over 3all the earth? No! This had never been bestowed on Adam.

    Here there is an attempt to trace all human errors directly or indirectly to God, or good, as if He were the 12The beguiling first liecreator of evil. The allegory shows that the snake-talker utters the first voluble lie, which beguiles the woman and demoralizes the man. Adam, 15alias mortal error, charges God and woman with his own dereliction, saying, “The woman, whom Thou gavest me, is responsible.” According to this belief, the rib taken 18from Adam’s side has grown into an evil mind, named woman, who aids man to make sinners more rapidly than he can alone. Is this an help meet for man?

21    Materiality, so obnoxious to God, is already found in the rapid deterioration of the bone and flesh which came from Adam to form Eve. The belief in material life and in‐24telligence is growing worse at every step, but error has its suppositional day and multiplies until the end thereof.

    Truth, cross-questioning man as to his knowledge of 27error, finds woman the first to confess her fault. She False womanhoodsays, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;” as much as to say in meek penitence, 30“Neither man nor God shall father my fault.” She has already learned that corporeal sense is the serpent. Hence 534 534:1she is first to abandon the belief in the material origin of man and to discern spiritual creation. This hereafter 3enabled woman to be the mother of Jesus and to behold at the sepulchre the risen Saviour, who was soon to mani‐fest the deathless man of God’s creating. This enabled 6woman to be first to interpret the Scriptures in their true sense, which reveals the spiritual origin of man.

12    This prophecy has been fulfilled. The Son of the Virgin-mother unfolded the remedy for Adam, or error; and the Spirit and fleshApostle Paul explains this warfare between the 15idea of divine power, which Jesus presented, and mythological material intelligence called energy and opposed to Spirit.

18    Paul says in his epistle to the Romans: “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that 21are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you.”

24    There will be greater mental opposition to the spirit‐ual, scientific meaning of the Scriptures than there has Bruising sin’s headever been since the Christian era began. The 27serpent, material sense, will bite the heel of the woman, — will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman, this idea, will bruise the head 30of lust. The spiritual idea has given the understanding 535 535:1a foothold in Christian Science. The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding, — yea, 3the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter, — are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places.

    Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed ma‐terial foundations of life and intelligence. It dooms idol‐12Judgment on erroratry. A belief in other gods, other creators, and other creations must go down before Chris‐tian Science. It unveils the results of sin as shown in 15sickness and death. When will man pass through the open gate of Christian Science into the heaven of Soul, into the heritage of the first born among men? Truth is 18indeed “the way.”

    In the first chapter of Genesis we read: “And God 30called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together 536 536:1of the waters called He Seas.” In the Apocalypse it is written: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for 3New earth and no more seathe first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” In St. John’s vision, heaven and earth stand for spir‐6itual ideas, and the sea, as a symbol of tempest-tossed human concepts advancing and receding, is represented as having passed away. The divine understanding reigns, 9is all, and there is no other consciousness.

    The way of error is awful to contemplate. The illu‐sion of sin is without hope or God. If man’s spiritual 12The fall of errorgravitation and attraction to one Father, in whom we “live, and move, and have our be‐ing,” should be lost, and if man should be governed by 15corporeality instead of divine Principle, by body instead of by Soul, man would be annihilated. Created by flesh instead of by Spirit, starting from matter instead of from 18God, mortal man would be governed by himself. The blind leading the blind, both would fall.

    Passions and appetites must end in pain. They are 21“of few days, and full of trouble.” Their supposed joys are cheats. Their narrow limits belittle their gratifica‐tions, and hedge about their achievements with thorns.

24    Mortal mind accepts the erroneous, material concep‐tion of life and joy, but the true idea is gained from the True attainmentimmortal side. Through toil, struggle, and sor‐27row, what do mortals attain? They give up their belief in perishable life and happiness; the mortal and material return to dust, and the immortal is reached.

9    A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divin‐ity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil Justice and recompensehas no local habitation nor name. Crea‐12tion is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Error excludes itself from harmony. Sin 15is its own punishment. Truth guards the gateway to harmony. Error tills its own barren soil and buries itself in the ground, since ground and dust stand for 18nothingness.

    No one can reasonably doubt that the purpose of this allegory — this second account in Genesis — is to depict 21Inspired interpretationthe falsity of error and the effects of error. Subsequent Bible revelation is coordinate with the Science of creation recorded in the 24first chapter of Genesis. Inspired writers interpret the Word spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it literally. Literally taken, the text is made to appear 27contradictory in some places, and divine Love, which blessed the earth and gave it to man for a possession, is represented as changeable. The literal meaning would 30imply that God withheld from man the opportunity to reform, lest man should improve it and become better; but this is not the nature of God, who is Love always, — 538 538:1Love infinitely wise and altogether lovely, who “seeketh not her own.”

3    Truth should, and does, drive error out of all selfhood. Truth is a two-edged sword, guarding and guiding. Spiritual gatewayTruth places the cherub wisdom at the gate 6of understanding to note the proper guests. Radiant with mercy and justice, the sword of Truth gleams afar and indicates the infinite distance between 9Truth and error, between the material and spiritual, — the unreal and the real.

    The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure 12of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the Contrasted testimonyuniverse. The “tree of life” is significant of eternal reality or being. The “tree of knowl‐15edge” typifies unreality. The testimony of the serpent is significant of the illusion of error, of the false claims that misrepresent God, good. Sin, sickness, and death have 18no record in the Elohistic introduction of Genesis, in which God creates the heavens, earth, and man. Until that which contradicts the truth of being enters into the arena, 21evil has no history, and evil is brought into view only as the unreal in contradistinction to the real and eternal.

    This account is given, not of immortal man, but of mor‐27tal man, and of sin which is temporal. As both mortal Erroneous conceptionman and sin have a beginning, they must consequently have an end, while the sinless, 30real man is eternal. Eve’s declaration, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” supposes God to be the author 539 539:1of sin and sin’s progeny. This false sense of existence is fratricidal. In the words of Jesus, it (evil, devil) is 3“a murderer from the beginning.” Error begins by reckoning life as separate from Spirit, thus sapping the foundations of immortality, as if life and immortality 6were something which matter can both give and take away.

    What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life, 9or of Truth, if they produce their opposites, such as evil, Only one standardmatter, error, and death? God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses 12nothing which he has not derived from God. How then has man a basis for wrong-doing? Whence does he obtain the propensity or power to do evil? Has Spirit 15 resigned to matter the government of the universe?

    The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as to man’s origin and character by condemning its symbol, 18A type of falsehoodthe serpent, to grovel beneath all the beasts of the field. It is false to say that Truth and error commingle in creation. In parable and argument, 21this falsity is exposed by our Master as self-evidently wrong. Disputing these points with the Pharisees and arguing for the Science of creation, Jesus said: “Do men 24gather grapes of thorns?” Paul asked: “What com‐munion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”

27    The divine origin of Jesus gave him more than human power to expound the facts of creation, and demonstrate Scientific offspringthe one Mind which makes and governs man 30and the universe. The Science of creation, so conspicuous in the birth of Jesus, inspired his wisest and least-understood sayings, and was the basis of his 540 540:1marvellous demonstrations. Christ is the offspring of Spirit, and spiritual existence shows that Spirit creates 3neither a wicked nor a mortal man, lapsing into sin, sick‐ness, and death.

    In Isaiah we read: “I make peace, and create evil. I 6 the Lord do all these things;” but the prophet referred to Cleansing upheavaldivine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its utmost, when bringing it to the surface and re‐9ducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms 12of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our igno‐rance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God’s law uncovers so-called sin and its 15effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin.

    Science renders “unto Cæsar the things which are 18Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” It Allegiance to Spiritsaith to the human sense of sin, sickness, and death, “God never made you, and you are a 21false sense which hath no knowledge of God.” The pur‐pose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assum‐ing a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe 24a lie.

    Cain is the type of mortal and material man, conceived Spiritual and materialin sin and “shapen in iniquity;” he is not the 30type of Truth and Love. Material in origin and sense, he brings a material offering to God. Abel 541 541:1takes his offering from the firstlings of the flock. A lamb is a more animate form of existence, and more nearly re‐3sembles a mind-offering than does Cain’s fruit. Jealous of his brother’s gift, Cain seeks Abel’s life, instead of mak‐ing his own gift a higher tribute to the Most High.

9    Had God more respect for the homage bestowed through a gentle animal than for the worship expressed by Cain’s fruit? No; but the lamb was a more spiritual type of 12even the human concept of Love than the herbs of the ground could be.

    The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelli‐gence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood 18of man at the very outset.

    Here the serpentine lie invents new forms. At first it Brotherhood repudiatedusurps divine power. It is supposed to say 24in the first instance, “Ye shall be as gods.” Now it repudiates even the human duty of man towards his brother.

542:1    The belief of life in matter sins at every step. It in‐curs divine displeasure, and it would kill Jesus that it 3Murder brings its cursemight be rid of troublesome Truth. Material beliefs would slay the spiritual idea when‐ever and wherever it appears. Though error hides 6behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. Truth causes sin to betray itself, and sets upon 9error the mark of the beast. Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished. The avoidance of justice and the denial of truth tend to perpetuate sin, 12invoke crime, jeopardize self-control, and mock divine mercy.

18    “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God’s Retribution and remorseown way, and let human justice pattern the 21divine. Sin will receive its full penalty, both for what it is and for what it does. Justice marks the sinner, and teaches mortals not to remove the 24waymarks of God. To envy’s own hell, justice con‐signs the lie which, to advance itself, breaks God’s commandments.

    The sinful misconception of Life as something less 543 543:1than God, having no truth to support it, falls back upon itself. This error, after reaching the climax of suffering, 3Climax of sufferingyields to Truth and returns to dust; but it is only mortal man and not the real man, who dies. The image of Spirit cannot be effaced, since it 6is the idea of Truth and changes not, but becomes more beautifully apparent at error’s demise.

    In divine Science, the material man is shut out from 9the presence of God. The five corporeal senses cannot Dwelling in dreamlandtake cognizance of Spirit. They cannot come into His presence, and must dwell in dream‐12land, until mortals arrive at the understanding that ma‐terial life, with all its sin, sickness, and death, is an illu‐sion, against which divine Science is engaged in a warfare 15of extermination. The great verities of existence are never excluded by falsity.

    All error proceeds from the evidence before the mate‐18rial senses. If man is material and originates in an Man springs from Mindegg, who shall say that he is not primarily dust? May not Darwin be right in think‐21ing that apehood preceded mortal manhood? Minerals and vegetables are found, according to divine Science, to be the creations of erroneous thought, not of matter. 24Did man, whom God created with a word, originate in an egg? When Spirit made all, did it leave aught for matter to create? Ideas of Truth alone are reflected 27in the myriad manifestations of Life, and thus it is seen that man springs solely from Mind. The belief that matter supports life would make Life, or God, 30mortal.

    The text, “In the day that the Lord God [Jehovah God] made the earth and the heavens,” introduces the 544 544:1record of a material creation which followed the spiritual,  — a creation so wholly apart from God’s, that Spirit 3Material inception had no participation in it. In God’s creation ideas became productive, obedient to Mind. There was no rain and “not a man to till the ground.” 6Mind, instead of matter, being the producer, Life was self-sustained. Birth, decay, and death arise from the material sense of things, not from the spiritual, for in 9the latter Life consisteth not of the things which a man eateth. Matter cannot change the eternal fact that man exists because God exists. Nothing is new to the 12infinite Mind.

    In Science, Mind neither produces matter nor does matter produce mind. No mortal mind has the might 15First evil suggestionor right or wisdom to create or to destroy. All is under the control of the one Mind, even God. The first statement about evil, — the first 18suggestion of more than the one Mind, — is in the fable of the serpent. The facts of creation, as previously re‐corded, include nothing of the kind.

21    The serpent is supposed to say, “Ye shall be as gods,” but these gods must be evolved from materiality and be Material personalitythe very antipodes of immortal and spiritual 24being. Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness. Therefore man, in this allegory, is neither a lesser god nor the image and 27likeness of the one God.

    Material, erroneous belief reverses understanding and truth. It declares mind to be in and of matter, so-called 30mortal life to be Life, infinity to enter man’s nostrils so that matter becomes spiritual. Error begins with corporeality as the producer instead of divine Prin‐545545:1ciple, and explains Deity through mortal and finite con‐ceptions.

3    “Behold, the man is become as one of us.” This could not be the utterance of Truth or Science, for according to the record, material man was fast degenerating and 6never had been divinely conceived.

    The condemnation of mortals to till the ground means this, — that mortals should so improve material belief 9Mental tillageby thought tending spiritually upward as to destroy materiality. Man, created by God, was given dominion over the whole earth. The notion 12of a material universe is utterly opposed to the theory of man as evolved from Mind. Such fundamental errors send falsity into all human doctrines and conclusions, 15and do not accord infinity to Deity. Error tills the whole ground in this material theory, which is entirely a false view, destructive to existence and happiness. Out‐18side of Christian Science all is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth; yet this opposite, in its false view of God and man, impudently demands a blessing.

21    The translators of this record of scientific creation entertained a false sense of being. They believed in Erroneous standpointthe existence of matter, its propagation and 24power. From that standpoint of error, they could not apprehend the nature and operation of Spirit. Hence the seeming contradiction in that Scripture, which 27is so glorious in its spiritual signification. Truth has but one reply to all error, — to sin, sickness, and death: “Dust [nothingness] thou art, and unto dust [nothingness] 30shalt thou return.”

    “As in Adam [error] all die, even so in Christ [Truth] shall all be made alive.” The mortality of man is a 546 546:1myth, for man is immortal. The false belief that spirit is now submerged in matter, at some future time to be eman‐3Mortality mythicalcipated from it, — this belief alone is mortal. Spirit, God, never germinates, but is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” If Mind, God, cre‐6ates error, that error must exist in the divine Mind, and this assumption of error would dethrone the perfection of Deity.

9    Is Christian Science contradictory? Is the divine Principle of creation misstated? Has God no Science to No truth from a material basisdeclare Mind, while matter is governed by un‐12erring intelligence? “There went up a mist from the earth.” This represents error as starting from an idea of good on a material basis. It 15supposes God and man to be manifested only through the corporeal senses, although the material senses can take no cognizance of Spirit or the spiritual idea.

18    Genesis and the Apocalypse seem more obscure than other portions of the Scripture, because they cannot possibly be interpreted from a material standpoint. To 21the author, they are transparent, for they contain the deep divinity of the Bible.

    Christian Science is dawning upon a material age. 24The great spiritual facts of being, like rays of light, shine Dawning of spiritual factsin the darkness, though the darkness, com‐prehending them not, may deny their reality. 27The proof that the system stated in this book is Chris‐tianly scientific resides in the good this system accom‐plishes, for it cures on a divine demonstrable Principle 30 which all may understand.

    If mathematics should present a thousand different examples of one rule, the proving of one example would 547 547:1authenticate all the others. A simple statement of Chris‐tian Science, if demonstrated by healing, contains the 3Proof given in healingproof of all here said of Christian Science. If one of the statements in this book is true, every one must be true, for not one departs from the stated sys‐6tem and rule. You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of healing, and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct interpretation of Scripture.

9    The late Louis Agassiz, by his microscopic examination of a vulture’s ovum, strengthens the thinker’s conclusions Embryonic evolutionas to the scientific theory of creation. Agassiz 12was able to see in the egg the earth’s atmos‐phere, the gathering clouds, the moon and stars, while the germinating speck of so-called embryonic life seemed a 15small sun. In its history of mortality, Darwin’s theory of evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most theories. Briefly, this is Darwin’s theory, — that 18Mind produces its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power to recreate the universe, including man. Ma‐terial evolution implies that the great First Cause must 21become material, and afterwards must either return to Mind or go down into dust and nothingness.

    The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to 24have them understood spiritually, for only by this under‐True theory of the universestanding can truth be gained. The true the‐ory of the universe, including man, is not in 27material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and 30immortal.

    It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith. 548 548:1“The Spirit and the bride say, Come! . . . and whoso‐ever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Christian 3Scriptural perceptionScience separates error from truth, and breathes through the sacred pages the spiritual sense of life, substance, and intelligence. In this Science, we dis‐6cover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal harmony.

9    How little light or heat reach our earth when clouds cover the sun’s face! So Christian Science can be seen The clouds dissolvingonly as the clouds of corporeal sense roll away. 12Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension 15of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.

18    Speaking of the origin of mortals, a famous naturalist says: “It is very possible that many general statements Prediction of a naturalistnow current, about birth and generation, will 21be changed with the progress of information.” Had the naturalist, through his tireless researches, gained the diviner side in Christian Science, — so far apart from 24his material sense of animal growth and organization, — he would have blessed the human race more abundantly.

    Natural history is richly endowed by the labors and 27genius of great men. Modern discoveries have brought Methods of reproductionto light important facts in regard to so-called embryonic life. Agassiz declares (“Methods 30of Study in Natural History,” page 275): “Certain ani‐mals, besides the ordinary process of generation, also increase their numbers naturally and constantly by self-549549:1division.” This discovery is corroborative of the Science of Mind, for this discovery shows that the multiplication 3of certain animals takes place apart from sexual condi‐tions. The supposition that life germinates in eggs and must decay after it has grown to maturity, if not before, 6is shown by divine metaphysics to be a mistake, — a blunder which will finally give place to higher theories and demonstrations.

9    Creatures of lower forms of organism are supposed to have, as classes, three different methods of reproduc‐The three processestion and to multiply their species sometimes 12through eggs, sometimes through buds, and sometimes through self-division. According to recent lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of 15new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individu‐alities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look 18upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of the most complicated corporeal structures, including those which we call human. Here these material researches 21culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are de‐void of metaphysics.

24    In one instance a celebrated naturalist, Agassiz, dis‐covers the pathway leading to divine Science, and beards Deference to material lawthe lion of materialism in its den. At that 27point, however, even this great observer mis‐takes nature, forsakes Spirit as the divine origin of creative Truth, and allows matter and material law to 30usurp the prerogatives of omnipotence. He absolutely drops from his summit, coming down to a belief in the material origin of man, for he virtually affirms that 550 550:1the germ of humanity is in a circumscribed and non-intelligent egg.

3    If this be so, whence cometh Life, or Mind, to the human race? Matter surely does not possess Mind. Deep-reaching interrogationsGod is the Life, or intelligence, which forms 6and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men. God cannot become finite, and be limited within material bounds. 9Spirit cannot become matter, nor can Spirit be developed through its opposite. Of what avail is it to investigate what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be‐12gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it will hereafter.

15    Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The continual contemplation of existence as material and cor‐Stages of existenceporeal — as beginning and ending, and with 18birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages — hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-21point whatsoever, then the great I am is a myth. If Life is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry‐onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for 24Deity.

    Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro‐ducing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor 27does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous and absurd as the supposition that Spirit — the pure and 30holy, the immutable and immortal — can originate the impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses 551 551:1must father these absurdities, for both the material senses and their reports are unnatural, impossible, and unreal.

3    Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity, The real producercalled matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro‐6duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.

9    One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he The ascent of speciesadds that mankind has ascended through all 12the lower grades of existence. Evolution de‐scribes the gradations of human belief, but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma‐15terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that all Science is of God, not of man.

    Naturalists ask: “What can there be, of a material 18nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs, — Transmitted peculiaritiesthemselves composed of the simplest material elements, — by which all peculiarities of an‐21cestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from generation to generation?” The question of the natu‐ralist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans‐24mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality. From a material standpoint, “Canst thou 27by searching find out God?” All must be Mind, or else all must be matter. Neither can produce the other. Mind is immortal; but error declares that the material 30seed must decay in order to propagate its species, and the resulting germ is doomed to the same routine.

    The ancient and hypothetical question, Which is first, 552 552:1the egg or the bird? is answered, if the egg produces the parent. But we cannot stop here. Another question 3Causation not in matterfollows: Who or what produces the parent of the egg? That the earth was hatched from the “egg of night” was once an accepted theory. Heathen 6philosophy, modern geology, and all other material hy‐potheses deal with causation as contingent on matter and as necessarily apparent to the corporeal senses, even 9where the proof requisite to sustain this assumption is un‐discovered. Mortal theories make friends of sin, sickness, and death; whereas the spiritual scientific facts of exist‐12ence include no member of this dolorous and fatal triad.

    Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, “Man 15Emergence of mortalsthat is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck 18open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward. But thought, loosened from a material basis but not yet instructed by Science, may become wild 21with freedom and so be self-contradictory.

    From a material source flows no remedy for sorrow, sin, and death, for the redeeming power, from the ills 24Persistence of speciesthey occasion, is not in egg nor in dust. The blending tints of leaf and flower show the order of matter to be the order of mortal mind. The 27intermixture of different species, urged to its utmost limits, results in a return to the original species. Thus it is learned that matter is a manifestation of mortal 30mind, and that matter always surrenders its claims when the perfect and eternal Mind is understood.

    Naturalists describe the origin of mortal and material 553 553:1existence in the various forms of embryology, and ac‐company their descriptions with important observations, 3Better basis than embryologywhich should awaken thought to a higher and purer contemplation of man’s origin. This clearer consciousness must precede an under‐6standing of the harmony of being. Mortal thought must obtain a better basis, get nearer the truth of being, or health will never be universal, and harmony will never 9become the standard of man.

    One of our ablest naturalists has said: “We have no right to assume that individuals have grown or been 12formed under circumstances which made material con‐ditions essential to their maintenance and reproduction, or important to their origin and first introduction.” 15Why, then, is the naturalist’s basis so materialistic, and why are his deductions generally material?

    Adam was created before Eve. In this instance, it is 18seen that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam. All nativity in thoughtEve was formed from Adam’s rib, not from a fœtal ovum. Whatever theory may be adopted 21by general mortal thought to account for human origin, that theory is sure to become the signal for the appear‐ance of its method in finite forms and operations. If con‐24sentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief will immediately supersede the more ancient supersti‐27tion about the creation from dust or from the rib of our primeval father.

    You may say that mortals are formed before they 30Being is immortalthink or know aught of their origin, and you may also ask how belief can affect a result which precedes the development of that belief. It can 554 554:1only be replied, that Christian Science reveals what “eye hath not seen,” — even the cause of all that exists, — for 3the universe, inclusive of man, is as eternal as God, who is its divine immortal Principle. There is no such thing as mortality, nor are there properly any mortal beings, 6because being is immortal, like Deity, — or, rather, being and Deity are inseparable.

    Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement 9of life, following from a misconception of life, is errone‐Our conscious developmentous, because it is destitute of any knowledge of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of 12any knowledge of its origin or existence. The mortal is unconscious of his fœtal and infantile existence; but as he grows up into another false claim, that of self-con‐15scious matter, he learns to say, “I am somebody; but who made me?” Error replies, “God made you.” The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the 18creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.

    Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation 21better than we can, when he said, “He is a liar, and the Mendacity of errorfather of it.” Jesus also said, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 24This he said of Judas, one of Adam’s race. Jesus never intimated that God made a devil, but he did say, “Ye are of your father, the devil.” All these sayings were to 27show that mind in matter is the author of itself, and is simply a falsity and illusion.

    It is the general belief that the lower animals are less 30Ailments of animalssickly than those possessing higher organiza‐tions, especially those of the human form. This would indicate that there is less disease in propor‐555555:1tion as the force of mortal mind is less pungent or sensi‐tive, and that health attends the absence of mortal mind. 3A fair conclusion from this might be, that it is the human belief, and not the divine arbitrament, which brings the physical organism under the yoke of disease.

6    An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian Science: “I like your explanations of truth, but I do Ignorance the sign of errornot comprehend what you say about error.” 9This is the nature of error. The mark of igno‐rance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor can be understood. Error would have itself received as 12mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth; but Christian Science attributes to error neither entity nor power, because error is neither mind nor the outcome of 15Mind.

    Searching for the origin of man, who is the reflection of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self-18The origin of divinityexistent and eternal. Only impotent error would seek to unite Spirit with matter, good with evil, immortality with mortality, and call this 21sham unity man, as if man were the offspring of both Mind and matter, of both Deity and humanity. Crea‐tion rests on a spiritual basis. We lose our standard of 24perfection and set aside the proper conception of Deity, when we admit that the perfect is the author of aught that can become imperfect, that God bestows the power 27to sin, or that Truth confers the ability to err. Our great example, Jesus, could restore the individualized manifestation of existence, which seemed to vanish in 30death. Knowing that God was the Life of man, Jesus was able to present himself unchanged after the cruci‐fixion. Truth fosters the idea of Truth, and not the be‐556556:1lief in illusion or error. That which is real, is sustained by Spirit.

3    Vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata are mor‐tal and material concepts classified, and are supposed to Genera classifiedpossess life and mind. These false beliefs 6will disappear, when the radiation of Spirit destroys forever all belief in intelligent matter. Then will the new heaven and new earth appear, for the for‐9mer things will have passed away.

    Mortal belief infolds the conditions of sin. Mortal belief dies to live again in renewed forms, only to go out 12The Christian’s privilegeat last forever; for life everlasting is not to be gained by dying. Christian Science may ab‐sorb the attention of sage and philosopher, but 15the Christian alone can fathom it. It is made known most fully to him who understands best the divine Life. Did the origin and the enlightenment of the race come 18from the deep sleep which fell upon Adam? Sleep is darkness, but God’s creative mandate was, “Let there be light.” In sleep, cause and effect are mere illusions. 21They seem to be something, but are not. Oblivion and dreams, not realities, come with sleep. Even so goes on the Adam-belief, of which mortal and material life is the 24dream.

    Ontology receives less attention than physiology. Why? Ontology versus physiologyBecause mortal mind must waken to spiritual 27life before it cares to solve the problem of being, hence the author’s experience; but when that awakening comes, existence will be on a new stand‐30point.

    It is related that a father plunged his infant babe, only a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and 557 557:1repeated this operation daily, until the child could remain under water twenty minutes, moving and playing with‐3out harm, like a fish. Parents should remember this, and learn how to develop their children properly on dry land.

6    Mind controls the birth-throes in the lower realms of nature, where parturition is without suffering. Vege‐The curse removedtables, minerals, and many animals suffer no 9pain in multiplying; but human propagation has its suffering because it is a false belief. Christian Sci‐ence reveals harmony as proportionately increasing as the 12line of creation rises towards spiritual man, — towards enlarged understanding and intelligence; but in the line of the corporeal senses, the less a mortal knows of sin, 15disease, and mortality, the better for him, — the less pain and sorrow are his. When the mist of mortal mind evap‐orates, the curse will be removed which says to woman, 18“In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as 21never dying, but as coexistent with his creator.

    Popular theology takes up the history of man as if he began materially right, but immediately fell into mental 24sin; whereas revealed religion proclaims the Science of Mind and its formations as being in accordance with the first chapter of the Old Testament, when God, Mind, 27spake and it was done.