Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

It is evident that the

body as matter has no sensation of its own, and there is no

oblivion for Soul and its faculties. Spirit’s senses are with-215:1 out pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide

from them the harmony of all things and the might and 215:3 permanence of Truth.

 

Real being never lost

 

If Spirit, Soul, could sin or be lost, then being and immortality would be lost, together with all the faculties of 215:6 Mind; but being cannot be lost while God exists. Soul and matter are at variance from the

very necessity of their opposite natures. Mortals are 215:9 unacquainted with the reality of existence, because matter

and mortality do not reflect the facts of Spirit.

 

Spiritual vision is not subordinate to geometric alti-215:12 tudes. Whatever is governed by God, is never for an

instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence

and Life.

 

Light and darkness

215:15 We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real

as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal

sense of the absence of light, at the coming of 215:18 which darkness loses the appearance of reality.

So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional

absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before 215:21 truth and love.

 

With its divine proof, Science reverses the evidence of

material sense. Every quality and condition of mortality 215:24 is lost, swallowed up in immortality. Mortal man is the

antipode of immortal man in origin, in existence, and in his

relation to God.

 

Faith of Socrates

215:27 Because he understood the superiority and immortality of good, Socrates feared not the hemlock poison.

Even the faith of his philosophy spurned phys-215:30 ical timidity. Having sought man’s spiritual

state, he recognized the immortality of man. The ignorance and malice of the age would have killed the vener-216:1 able philosopher because of his faith in Soul and his indifference to the body.

 

The serpent of error

216:3 Who shall say that man is alive to-day, but may be dead

to-morrow? What has touched Life, God, to such

strange issues? Here theories cease, and Sci-216:6 ence unveils the mystery and solves the problem of man. Error bites the heel of truth, but cannot kill

truth. Truth bruises the head of error - destroys error. 216:9 Spirituality lays open siege to materialism. On which

side are we fighting?

 

Servants and masters

 

The understanding that the Ego is Mind, and that 216:12 there is but one Mind or intelligence, begins at once to

destroy the errors of mortal sense and to supply

the truth of immortal sense. This understand-216:15 ing makes the body harmonious; it makes the nerves,

bones, brain, etc., servants, instead of masters. If man

is governed by the law of divine Mind, his body is in sub-216:18 mission to everlasting Life and Truth and Love. The

great mistake of mortals is to suppose that man, God’s

image and likeness, is both matter and Spirit, both good 216:21 and evil.

 

If the decision were left to the corporeal senses, evil

would appear to be the master of good, and sickness to 216:24 be the rule of existence, while health would seem the

exception, death the inevitable, and life a paradox. Paul

asked: “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor-216:27 inthians vi. 15.)

 

Personal identity

 

When you say, “Man’s body is material,” I say with

Paul: Be “willing rather to be absent from the body, 216:30 and to be present with the Lord.” Give up

your material belief of mind in matter, and

have but one Mind, even God; for this Mind forms its 217:1 own likeness. The loss of man’s identity through the

understanding which Science confers is impossible; and 217:3 the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to

conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the

origin of harmony.

 

Paul’s experience

217:6 Medical schools may inform us that the healing work

of Christian Science and Paul’s peculiar Christian conversion and experience, - which prove Mind 217:9 to be scientifically distinct from matter, - are

indications of unnatural mental and bodily conditions,

even of catalepsy and hysteria; yet if we turn to the Scrip-217:12 tures, what do we read? Why, this: “If a man keep my

saying, he shall never see death!” and “Henceforth know

we no man after the flesh!”

 

Fatigue is mental

217:15 That scientific methods are superior to others, is

seen by their effects. When you have once conquered

a diseased condition of the body through 217:18 Mind, that condition never recurs, and you

have won a point in Science. When mentality gives

rest to the body, the next toil will fatigue you less, for 217:21 you are working out the problem of being in divine metaphysics; and in proportion as you understand the control which Mind has over so-called matter, you will be 217:24 able to demonstrate this control. The scientific and

permanent remedy for fatigue is to learn the power of

Mind over the body or any illusion of physical weariness, 217:27 and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary

and heavy-laden.

 

You say, “Toil fatigues me.” But what is this me! 217:30 Is it muscle or mind? Which is tired and so speaks?

Without mind, could the muscles be tired? Do the

muscles talk, or do you talk for them? Matter is non-218:1 intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that

which affirms weariness, made that weariness.

 

Mind never weary

218:3 You do not say a wheel is fatigued; and yet the body

is as material as the wheel. If it were not for what the

human mind says of the body, the body, like 218:6 the inanimate wheel, would never be weary.

The consciousness of Truth rests us more than hours of

repose in unconsciousness.

 

Coalition of sin and sickness

218:9 The body is supposed to say, “I am ill.” The reports

of sickness may form a coalition with the reports of sin,

and say, “I am malice, lust, appetite, envy, 218:12 hate.” What renders both sin and sickness

difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the

sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that 218:15 the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and

that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body.

 

Sickness akin to sin

 

Why pray for the recovery of the sick, if you are with-218:18 out faith in God’s willingness and ability to heal them?

If you do believe in God, why do you substitute drugs for the Almighty’s power, and 218:21 employ means which lead only into material ways of

obtaining help, instead of turning in time of need to

God, divine Love, who is an ever-present help?

218:24 Treat a belief in sickness as you would sin, with sudden

dismissal. Resist the temptation to believe in matter as

intelligent, as having sensation or power.

218:27 The Scriptures say, “They that wait upon the Lord

… shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk,

and not faint.” The meaning of that passage is not 218:30 perverted by applying it literally to moments of fatigue,

for the moral and physical are as one in their results.

When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, 219:1 pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be

unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease. My 219:3 method of treating fatigue applies to all bodily ailments,

since Mind should be, and is, supreme, absolute, and

final.

 

Affirmation and result

219:6 In mathematics, we do not multiply when we should

subtract, and then say the product is correct. No more

can we say in Science that muscles give strength, 219:9 that nerves give pain or pleasure, or that matter

governs, and then expect that the result will be harmony.

Not muscles, nerves, nor bones, but mortal mind makes 219:12 the whole body “sick, and the whole heart faint;” whereas

divine Mind heals.

 

When this is understood, we shall never affirm concern-219:15 ing the body what we do not wish to have manifested. We

shall not call the body weak, if we would have it strong;

for the belief in feebleness must obtain in the human 219:18 mind before it can be made manifest on the body, and

the destruction of the belief will be the removal of its

effects. Science includes no rule of discord, but governs 219:21 harmoniously. “The wish,” says the poet, “is ever father

to the thought.”

 

Scientific beginning

 

We may hear a sweet melody, and yet misunderstand 219:24 the science that governs it. Those who are healed

through metaphysical Science, not comprehending the Principle of the cure, may misun-219:27 derstand it, and impute their recovery to change of air or

diet, not rendering to God the honor due to Him alone.

Entire immunity from the belief in sin, suffering, and 219:30 death may not be reached at this period, but we may look

for an abatement of these evils; and this scientific beginning is in the right direction.

 

Hygiene ineffectual

220:1 We hear it said: ” I exercise daily in the open air. I

take cold baths, in order to overcome a predisposition to 220:3 take cold; and yet I have continual colds,

catarrh, and cough.” Such admissions ought

to open people’s eyes to the inefficacy of material hygiene, 220:6 and induce sufferers to look in other directions for cause

and cure.

 

Instinct is better than misguided reason, as even na-220:9 ture declares. The violet lifts her blue eye to greet the

early spring. The leaves clap their hands as nature’s

untired worshippers. The snowbird sings and soars 220:12 amid the blasts; he has no catarrh from wet feet, and

procures a summer residence with more ease than a na—

bob. The atmosphere of the earth, kinder than the at-220:15 mosphere of mortal mind, leaves catarrh to the latter.

Colds, coughs, and contagion are engendered solely by

human theories.

 

The reflex phenomena

220:18 Mortal mind produces its own phenomena, and then

charges them to something else, - like a kitten

glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking 220:21 it sees another kitten.

 

A clergyman once adopted a diet of bread and water

to increase his spirituality. Finding his health failing, 220:24 he gave up his abstinence, and advised others never to

try dietetics for growth in grace.

 

Volition far-reaching

 

The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men 220:27 better morally or physically is one of the fruits of “the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” concerning which God said, “Thou shalt not eat 220:30 of it.” Mortal mind forms all conditions of the mortal

body, and controls the stomach, bones, lungs, heart, blood,

etc., as directly as the volition or will moves the mind.

 

Starvation and dyspepsia

221:1 I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the

Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he 221:3 ate only bread and vegetables, and drank nothing but water. His dyspepsia increasing, he

decided that his diet should be more rigid, and 221:6 thereafter he partook of but one meal in twenty-four

hours, this meal consisting of only a thin slice of bread

without water. His physician also recommended that 221:9 he should not wet his parched throat until three hours

after eating. He passed many weary years in hunger

and weakness, almost in starvation, and finally made up 221:12 his mind to die, having exhausted the skill of the doctors,

who kindly informed him that death was indeed his only

alternative. At this point Christian Science saved him, 221:15 and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the

old complaint.

 

He learned that suffering and disease were the self-221:18 imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of