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

and the place thereof shall 476:27 know it no more.”

 

The kingdom within

 

When speaking of God’s children, not the children of

men, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you;” 476:30 that is, Truth and Love reign in the real

man, showing that man in God’s image is

unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the per-477:1 fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal

man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour 477:3 saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man

healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom

of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy. 477:6 Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself

spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect

nor material.

 

Material body never God’s idea

477:9 Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal

senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but

Christian Science reveals man as the idea of 477:12 God, and declares the corporeal senses to be

mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science

shows it to be impossible that a material body, though 477:15 interwoven with matter’s highest stratum, misnamed

mind, should be man, - the genuine and perfect man,

the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal. 477:18 Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.

 

Reflection of Spirit

 

Question. - What are body and Soul?

Answer. - Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the re-477:21 flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle,

Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not 477:24 in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to

Spirit.

 

Man inseparable from Spirit

 

Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught 477:27 some glimpses of the underlying reality, when

they called a certain beautiful lake “the smile

of the Great Spirit.” Separated from man, 477:30 who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man,

divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is, 478:1 there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with

God.

 

A vacant domicile

478:3 What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you

within mortality? Even according to the teachings of

natural science, man has never beheld Spirit 478:6 or Soul leaving a body or entering it. What

basis is there for the theory of indwelling spirit, except

the claim of mortal belief? What would be thought of 478:9 the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a certain class of persons, when no such persons were ever seen

to go into the house or to come out of it, nor were they 478:12 even visible through the windows? Who can see a soul

in the body?

 

Harmonious functions

 

Question. - Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and 478:15 is there intelligence in matter?

Answer. - No, not if God is true and mortal man a

liar. The assertion that there can be pain or pleasure 478:18 in matter is erroneous. That body is most

harmonious in which the discharge of the natural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence 478:21 dwell in matter when matter is non-intelligent and

brain-lobes cannot think? Matter cannot perform the

functions of Mind. Error says, “I am man;” but this 478:24 belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning

to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material human beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which 478:27 reflects God. St. Paul said, “But when it pleased God,

who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me

by His grace, … I conferred not with flesh and blood.”

 

Immortal birthright

478:30 Mortal man is really a self-contradictory phrase, for

man is not mortal, “neither indeed can be;” man is im-479:1 mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and

not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit-479:3 ual origin. With what truth, then, could the

Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother,

“I have gotten a man from the Lord”? On the con-479:6 trary, if aught comes from God, it cannot be mortal and

material; it must be immortal and spiritual.

 

Matter’s supposed selfhood

 

Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit. 479:9 An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is

all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see,

feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self-479:12 cognizant, - cannot feel itself, see itself, nor

understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind,

which constitutes matter’s supposed selfhood, and matter 479:15 can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we

call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical

senses?

 

Chaos and darkness

479:18 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the

earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and

darkness was upon the face of the deep.” 479:21 (Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the

Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit

and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos 479:24 are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding,

and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of

nothingness.

 

Spiritual reflection

479:27 We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects

no light. So evil should be denied identity or power,

because it has none of the divine hues. Paul 479:30 says: “For the invisible things of Him, from

the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” (Romans i. 20.) 480:1 When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where 480:3 the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is

not, evil becomes nothing, - the opposite of the something of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then 480:6 there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace

of heavenly tints.

 

Harmony from Spirit

 

Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa-480:9 tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation.

Consciousness, as well as action, is governed

by Mind, - is in God, the origin and gov-480:12 ernor of all that Science reveals. Material sense has

its realm apart from Science in the unreal. Harmonious

action proceeds from Spirit, God. inharmony has no 480:15 Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man

to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the

cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus 480:18 attempting to separate Mind from God.

 

Evil non-existent

 

Man is not God, and God is not man. Again, God,

or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the oppo-480:21 site of good - that is, evil - which seems to

make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence,

evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a 480:24 false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious

parent of evil is a lie.

 

Vapor and nothingness

 

The Bible declares: “All things were made by Him 480:27 [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything,

made that was made.” This is the eternal

verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, 480:30 death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would

vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the 481:1 other. How important, then, to choose good as the

reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing 481:3 else. God’s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and

boundless bliss. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is liberty.” Like the archpriests of yore, man is 481:6 free “to enter into the holiest,” - the realm of God.

 

The fruit forbidden

 

Material sense never helps mortals to understand

Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man com-481:9 prehends and loves Deity. The various contradictions of the Science of Mind by the material senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re-481:12 mains forever intact. The forbidden fruit of knowledge,

against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of

error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death, 481:15 and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This

is the significance of the Scripture concerning this “tree

of the knowledge of good and evil,” - this growth of 481:18 material belief, of which it is said: “In the day that thou

eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Human hypotheses

first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and 481:21 then assume the necessity of these evils because of their

admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the pro—

curers of all discord.

 

Sense and pure Soul

481:24 If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements

of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself. If sin is

supported, God must uphold it, and this is 481:27 impossible, since Truth cannot support error.

Soul is the divine Principle of man and never sins, -

hence the immortality of Soul. In Science we learn that 481:30 it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; and it will be

found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and not a

sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the substitu-482:1 tion of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in

a majority of cases.

 

Soul defined

482:3 Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the

word soul through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil

and a good intelligence, resident in matter. 482:6 The proper use of the word soul can always

be gained by substituting the word God, where the deific

meaning is required. In other cases, use the word sense, 482:9 and you will have the scientific signification. As used

in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of

Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with 482:12 sense, with material sensation.

 

Sonship of Jesus

 

Question. - Is it important to understand these explanations in order to heal the sick? 482:15 Answer. - It is, since Christ is “the way” and the

truth casting out all error. Jesus called himself ” the

Son of man,” but not the son of Joseph. As 482:18 woman is but a species of the genera, he was

literally the Son of Man. Jesus was the highest human

concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from 482:21 Christ, the Messiah, - the divine idea of God outside

the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his control over matter. Angels announced to the Wisemen of 482:24 old this dual appearing, and angels whisper it, through

faith, to the hungering heart in every age.

 

Sickness erroneous

 

Sickness is part of the error which Truth casts out. 482:27 Error will not expel error. Christian Science is the law

of Truth, which heals the sick, on the basis

of the one Mind or God. It can heal in no 482:30 other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not

a healer, but causes the belief in disease.

 

True healing transcendent

483:1 Then comes the question, how do drugs, hygiene, and

animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they 483:3 do not heal, but only relieve suffering temporarily, exchanging one disease for another.

We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or 483:6 Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human.

Mind transcends all other power, and will ultimately supersede all other means in healing. In order to heal by 483:9 Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spiritual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral ignorance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its 483:12 approach to the standard in Christian Science.

 

Terms adopted by the author

 

After the author’s sacred discovery,