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

276:9 which was also in Christ Jesus.” Man and his Maker

are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness

is cognizant only of the things of God.

276:12 The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings

objects and thoughts into human view in their true light,

and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony 276:15 in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is

unreal and mortal.

 

Perfection requisite

 

If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life, 276:18 there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death.

When we learn in Science how to be perfect

even as our Father in heaven is perfect, 276:21 thought is turned into new and healthy channels, -

towards the contemplation of things immortal and away

from materiality to the Principle of the universe, includ-276:24 ing harmonious man.

 

Material beliefs and spiritual understanding never

mingle. The latter destroys the former. Discord is the 276:27 nothingness named error. Harmony is the somethingness

named Truth.

 

Like evolving like

 

Nature and revelation inform us that like produces 276:30 like. Divine Science does not gather grapes

from thorns nor figs from thistles. Intelligence never produces non-intelligence; but matter is 277:1 ever non-intelligent and therefore cannot spring from

intelligence. To all that is unlike unerring and eternal 277:3 Mind, this Mind saith, “Thou shalt surely die;” and elsewhere the Scripture says that dust returns to dust. The

non-intelligent relapses into its own unreality. Matter 277:6 never produces mind. The immortal never produces the

mortal. Good cannot result in evil. As God Himself is

good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be im-277:9 mortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal

error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirituality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and can-277:12 not be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

 

Natural history presents vegetables and animals as

preserving their original species, - like reproducing like. 277:15 A mineral is not produced by a vegetable nor the man

by the brute. In reproduction, the order of genus and

species is preserved throughout the entire round of nature. 277:18 This points to the spiritual truth and Science of being.

Error relies upon a reversal of this order, asserts that

Spirit produces matter and matter produces all the ills 277:21 of flesh, and therefore that good is the origin of evil.

These suppositions contradict even the order of material

so-called science.

 

Material error

277:24 The realm of the real is Spirit. The unlikeness of Spirit

is matter, and the opposite of the real is not divine, - it is

a human concept. Matter is an error of state-277:27 ment. This error in the premise leads to errors

in the conclusion in every statement into which it enters.

Nothing we can say or believe regarding matter is immor-277:30 tal, for matter is temporal and is therefore a mortal phenomenon, a human concept, sometimes beautiful, always

erroneous.

 

Substance versus supposition

278:1 Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter. 278:3 Divine metaphysics explains away matter.

Spirit is the only substance and consciousness

recognized by divine Science. The material 278:6 senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for

matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even

as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is 278:9 a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite,

all. Spirit can have no opposite.

 

One cause supreme

278:12 That matter is substantial or has life and sensation, is

one of the false beliefs of mortals, and exists only in a

supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence, 278:15 as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the

consciousness of matter. The admission that there can

be material substance requires another admission, - 278:18 namely, that Spirit is not infinite and that matter is self-creative, self-existent, and eternal. From this it would

follow that there are two eternal causes, warring forever 278:21 with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme

and all-presence.

 

The belief of the eternity of matter contradicts the 278:24 demonstration of life as Spirit, and leads to the conclusion that if man is material, he originated in matter and

must return to dust, - logic which would prove his an-278:27 nihilation.

 

Substance is Spirit

 

All that we term sin, sickness, and death is a mortal

belief. We define matter as error, because it is the oppo-278:30 site of life, substance, and intelligence. Matter, with its mortality, cannot be substantial

if Spirit is substantial and eternal. Which ought to 279:1 be substance to us, - the erring, changing, and dying,

the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable, 279:3 and immortal? A New Testament writer plainly describes faith, a quality of mind, as “the substance of things

hoped for.”

 

Material mortality

279:6 The doom of matter establishes the conclusion that

matter, slime, or protoplasm never originated

in the immortal Mind, and is therefore not 279:9 eternal. Matter is neither created by Mind nor for the

manifestation and support of Mind.

 

Spiritual tangibility

 

Ideas are tangible and real to immortal consciousness, 279:12 and they have the advantage of being eternal.

Spirit and matter can neither coexist nor cooperate, and one can no more create the other than 279:15 Truth can create error, or vice versa.

 

In proportion as the belief disappears that life and intelligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of 279:18 being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is

in God. Spirit is reached only through the understanding and demonstration of eternal Life and Truth and 279:21 Love.

 

Pantheistic tendencies

 

Every system of human philosophy, doctrine, and

medicine is more or less infected with the pantheistic 279:24 belief that there is mind in matter; but this

belief contradicts alike revelation and right

reasoning. A logical and scientific conclusion is reached 279:27 only through the knowledge that there are not two

bases of being, matter and mind, but one alone, -

Mind.

279:30 Pantheism, starting from a material sense of God,

seeks cause in effect, Principle in its idea, and life and

intelligence in matter.

 

The things of God are beautiful

280:1 In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown.

Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not prod-280:3 ucts of the infinite, perfect, and eternal All.

From Love and from the light and harmony

which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections 280:6 of good can come. All things beautiful and harmless are

ideas of Mind. Mind creates and multiplies them, and

the product must be mental.

280:9 Finite belief can never do justice to Truth in any direction. Finite belief limits all things, and would compress

Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull bone. Such be-280:12 lief can neither apprehend nor worship the infinite; and

to accommodate its finite sense of the divisibility of Soul

and substance, it seeks to divide the one Spirit into per-280:15 sons and souls.

 

Belief in many gods

 

Through this error, human belief comes to have “gods

many and lords many.” Moses declared as Jehovah’s 280:18 first command of the Ten: “Thou shalt have

no other gods before me!” But behold the

zeal of belief to establish the opposite error of many 280:21 minds. The argument of the serpent in the allegory, “Ye

shall be as gods,” urges through every avenue the belief

that Soul is in body, and that infinite Spirit, and Life, is 280:24 in finite forms.

 

Sensationless body

 

Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient

material form, man has a sensationless body; and God, 280:27 the Soul of man and of all existence, being

perpetual in His own individuality, harmony,

and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities 280:30 in man, - through Mind, not matter. The only excuse

for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science

of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, - ignorance 281:1 which yields only to the understanding of divine Science,

the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom 281:3 of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and

supreme. Spirit and matter no more commingle than

light and darkness. When one appears, the other dis-281:6 appears.

 

God and His image

 

Error presupposes man to be both mind and matter.

Divine Science contradicts the corporeal senses, rebukes 281:9 mortal belief, and asks: What is the Ego,

whence its origin and what its destiny? The

Ego-man is the reflection of the Ego-God; the Ego-man 281:12 is the image and likeness of perfect Mind, Spirit, divine

Principle.

 

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is 281:15 infinite individuality, which supplies all form and come—

liness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual

spiritual man and things.

281:18 The mind supposed to exist in matter or beneath a

skull bone is a myth, a misconceived sense and false

conception as to man and Mind. When we put off the 281:21 false sense for the true, and see that sin and mortality

have neither Principle nor permanency, we shall learn

that sin and mortality are without actual origin or right-281:24 ful existence. They are native nothingness, out of which

error would simulate creation through a man formed from

dust.

 

The true new idea

281:27 Divine Science does not put new wine into old bottles,

Soul into matter, nor the infinite into the finite. Our

false views of matter perish as we grasp 281:30 the facts of Spirit. The old belief must be

cast out or the new idea will be spilled, and the inspiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be 282:1 lost. Now, as of old, Truth casts out evils and heals

the sick.

 

Figures of being

282:3 The real Life, or Mind, and its opposite, the so-called

material life and mind, are figured by two geometrical

symbols, a circle or sphere and a straight 282:6 line. The circle represents the infinite without beginning or end; the straight line represents the

finite, which has both beginning and end. The sphere 282:9 represents good, the self-existent and eternal individuality

or Mind; the straight line represents evil, a belief in

a self-made and temporary material existence. Eternal 282:12 Mind and temporary material existence never unite in

figure or in fact.

 

Opposite symbols

 

A straight line finds no abiding-place in a curve, and a 282:15 curve finds no adjustment to a straight line. Similarly,

matter has no place in Spirit, and Spirit has

no place in matter. Truth has no home in 282:18 error, and error has no foothold in Truth. Mind cannot

pass into non-intelligence and matter, nor can non-intelligence become Soul. At no point can these opposites 282:21 mingle or unite. Even though they seem to touch, one

is still a curve and the other a straight line.

 

There is no inherent power in matter; for all that is 282:24 material is a material, human, mortal thought, always

governing itself erroneously.

 

Truth is the intelligence of immortal Mind. Error is 282:27 the so-called intelligence of mortal mind.

 

Truth is not inverted

 

Whatever indicates the fall of man or the opposite of

God or God’s absence, is the Adam-dream, which is neither 282:30 Mind nor man, for it is not begotten of the

Father. The rule of inversion infers from

error its opposite, Truth; but Truth is the light which 283:1 dispels error. As mortals begin to understand Spirit,

they give up the belief that there is any true existence 283:3 apart from God.

 

Source of all life and action

 

Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no

inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious 283:6 action. Mind is the