CHAPTER X - SCIENCE OF BEING

PAGE 268

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, . . . That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
- JOHN, First Epistle.
 Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen! - MARTIN LUTHER.

Materialistic challenge

1 In the material world, thought has brought to light
with great rapidity many useful wonders. With
3 like activity have thought's swift pinions been rising
towards the realm of the real, to the spiritual
cause of those lower things which give im-
6 pulse to inquiry. Belief in a material basis, from
which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding
to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from
9 matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Material-
istic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final
combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shep-
12 herd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with
Goliath.

Confusion confounded
 In this final struggle for supremacy, semi-metaphysi-

15 cal systems afford no substantial aid to scientific meta-
physics, for their arguments are based on
the false testimony of the material senses as
18 well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical

PAGE 269

1 systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pan-
demonium, a house divided against itself.

3 From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind
and matter and the mingling of good and evil have re-
sulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demon-
6 strations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the
unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothing-
ness, of evil.

Divine metaphysics

9 Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian
Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter
is truth. Metaphysics is above physics, and
12 matter does not enter into metaphysical prem-
ises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest
on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves
15 things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense
for the ideas of Soul.

These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual

18 consciousness, and they have this, advantage over the ob-
jects and thoughts of material sense, - they are good and
eternal.

Biblical foundations

21 The testimony of the material senses is neither abso-
lute nor divine. I therefore plant myself unreservedly
on the teachings of Jesus, of his apostles, of
24 the prophets, and on the testimony of the
Science of Mind. Other foundations there are none.
All other systems - systems based wholly or partly on
27 knowledge gained through the material senses - are reeds
shaken by the wind, not houses built on the rock.

Rejected theories
 The theories I combat are these: (1) that all is matter;

30 (2) that matter originates in Mind, and is as
real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life.
The first theory, that matter is everything, is quite as

PAGE 270

1 reasonable as the second, that Mind and matter coexist
and cooperate. One only of the following statements can
3 be true: (1) that everything is matter; (2) that every-
thing is Mind. Which one is it?

Matter and Mind are opposites. One is contrary to

6 the other in its very nature and essence; hence both can-
not be real. If one is real, the other must be unreal. Only
by understanding that there is but one power, - not two
9 powers, matter and Mind, - are scientific and logical
conclusions reached. Few deny the hypothesis that in-
telligence, apart from man and matter, governs the uni-
12 verse; and it is generally admitted that this intelligence
is the eternal Mind or divine principle, Love.

Prophetic ignorance
 The prophets of old looked for something higher than

15 the systems of their times; hence their fore-
sight of the new dispensation of Truth. But
they knew not what would be the precise nature of the
18 teaching and demonstration of God, divine Mind, in His
more infinite meanings, - the demonstration which was
to destroy sin, sickness, and death, establish the definition
21 of omnipotence, and maintain the Science of Spirit.

The pride of priesthood is the prince of this world. It
has nothing in Christ. Meekness and charity have divine

24 authority. Mortals think wickedly; consequently they
are wicked. They think sickly thoughts, and so become
sick. If sin makes sinners, Truth and Love alone can
27 unmake them. If a sense of disease produces suffering
and a sense of ease antidotes suffering, disease is mental,
not material. Hence the fact that the human mind alone
30 suffers, is sick, and that the divine Mind alone heals.

The life of Christ Jesus was not miraculous, but it was
indigenous to his spirituality, - the good soil wherein the

PAGE 271

1 seed of Truth springs up and bears much fruit. Christ's
Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing
3 in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with
the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of
God. Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination
6 exists in divine Science.

Jesus instructed his disciples whereby to heal the sick
through Mind instead of matter. He knew that the phi-

9 losophy, Science, and proof of Christianity were in Truth,
casting out all inharmony.

Studious disciples
 In Latin the word rendered disciple signifies student;

12 and the word indicates that the power of healing was not
a supernatural gift to those learners, but the
result of their cultivated spiritual understand-
15 ing of the divine Science, which their Master demonstrated
by healing the sick and sinning. Hence the universal ap-
plication of his saying: "Neither pray I for these alone,
18 but for them also which shall believe on me [understand
me] through their word."

New Testament basis
 Our Master said, "But the Comforter . . . shall

21 teach you all things." When the Science of Christianity
appears, it will lead you into all truth. The
Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this
24 Science, and the eternal life, not the death of Jesus, is
its outcome.

Modern evangel
 Those, who are willing to leave their nets or to cast

27 them on the right side for Truth, have the opportunity
now, as aforetime, to learn and to practise
Christian healing. The Scriptures contain it.
30 The spiritual import of the Word imparts this power.
But, as Paul says, "How shall they hear without a
preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be

PAGE 272

1 sent?" If sent, how shall they preach, convert, and heal
multitudes, except the people hear?

Spirituality of Scripture

3 The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before
Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only
as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.
6 In the soil of an "honest and good heart" the
seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the
swinish element in human nature uproots it. Jesus said:
9 "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures." The spiritual
sense of the Scriptures brings out the scientific sense, and
is the new tongue referred to in the last chapter of Mark's
12 Gospel.

Jesus' parable of "the sower" shows the care our
Master took not to impart to dull ears and gross hearts

15 the spiritual teachings which dulness and grossness could
not accept. Reading the thoughts of the people, he said:
"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast
18 ye your pearls before swine."

Unspiritual contrasts
 It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization
of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce

21 of material existence; it is chastity and purity,
in contrast with the downward tendencies
and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity,
24 which really attest the divine origin and operation of Chris-
tian Science. The triumphs of Christian Science are re-
corded in the destruction of error and evil, from which are
27 propagated the dismal beliefs of sin, sickness, and death.

God the Principle of all
 The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the
universe. God is the divine Principle of all that repre-

30 sents Him and of all that really exists. Chris-
tian Science, as demonstrated by Jesus, alone
reveals the natural, divine Principle of Science.

PAGE 273

1 Matter and its claims of sin, sickness, and death are
contrary to God, and cannot emanate from Him. There
3 is no material truth. The physical senses can take no
cognizance of God and spiritual Truth. Human belief
has sought out many inventions, but not one of them
6 can solve the problem of being without the divine Prin-
ciple of divine Science. Deductions from material hy-
potheses are not scientific. They differ from real Science
9 because they are not based on the divine law.

Science versus sense
 Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the ma-
terial senses, and thus tears away the foun-

12 dations of error. Hence the enmity between
Science and the senses, and the impossibility
of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense
15 are eliminated.

The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have
never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal.

18 Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the
importance of understanding the truth of being, which
reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

Spiritual law the only law

21 God never ordained a material law to annul the spiritual
law. If there were such a material law, it would oppose
the supremacy of Spirit, God, and impugn the
24 wisdom of the creator. Jesus walked on the
waves, fed the multitude, healed the sick, and raised the
dead in direct opposition to material laws. His acts were
27 the demonstration of Science, overcoming the false claims
of material sense or law.

Material knowledge illusive
 Science shows that material, conflicting mortal opin-

30 ions and beliefs emit the effects of error at all times, but
this atmosphere of mortal mind cannot be destructive to
morals and health when it is opposed promptly and per-

PAGE 274

1 sistently by Christian Science. Truth and Love antidote
this mental miasma, and thus invigorate and sustain ex-
3 istence. Unnecessary knowledge gained from
the five senses is only temporal, - the concep-
tion of mortal mind, the offspring of sense, not
6 of Soul, Spirit, - and symbolizes all that is evil and
perishable. Natural science, as it is commonly called, is
not really natural nor scientific, because it is deduced from
9 the evidence of the material senses. Ideas, on the con-
trary, are born of Spirit, and are not mere inferences
drawn from material premises.

Five senses deceptive

12 The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demon-
strate Truth and Life. Hence Christianity and the Sci-
ence which expounds it are based on spiritual
15 understanding, and they supersede the so-
called laws of matter. Jesus demonstrated this great
verity. When what we erroneously term the five physical
18 senses are misdirected, they are simply the manifested
beliefs of mortal mind, which affirm that life, substance,
and intelligence are material, instead of spiritual. These
21 false beliefs and their products constitute the flesh, and
the flesh wars against Spirit.

Impossible partnership
 Divine Science is absolute, and permits no half-way

24 position in learning its Principle and rule - establishing
it by demonstration. The conventional firm,
called matter and mind, God never formed.
27 Science and understanding, governed by the unerring and
eternal Mind, destroy the imaginary copartnership, matter
and mind, formed only to be destroyed in a manner and
30 at a period as yet unknown. This suppositional partner-
ship is already obsolete, for matter, examined in the light
of divine metaphysics, disappears.

PAGE 275

Spirit the starting-point

1 Matter has no life to lose, and Spirit never dies. A
partnership of mind with matter would ignore omnipres-
3 ent and omnipotent Mind. This shows that
matter did not originate in God, Spirit, and is
not eternal. Therefore matter is neither substantial, living,
6 nor intelligent. The starting-point of divine Science is
that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other
might nor Mind, - that God is Love, and therefore He
9 is divine Principle.

Divine synonyms
 To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science,
you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle

12 of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love,
combine as one, - and are the Scriptural names
for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, im-
15 mortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are
His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite
divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His
18 wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life
but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.

The divine completeness
 Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understand-

21 ing, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is
God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,
- that is, all power, all presence, all Science.
24 Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.

Our material human theories are destitute of Science.
The true understanding of God is spiritual. It robs the

27 grave of victory. It destroys the false evidence that mis-
leads thought and points to other gods, or other so-called
powers, such as matter, disease, sin, and death, superior
30 or contrary to the one Spirit.

Truth, spiritually discerned, is scientifically understood.
It casts out error and heals the sick.

PAGE 276

Universal brotherhood

1 Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that
heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, "I
3 am the Lord that healeth thee," and "I have
found a ransom." When the divine precepts
are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship,
6 in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have
one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with
the Scriptural command: "Let this Mind be in you,
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.

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
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,

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,
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-
24 ing harmonious man.

Material beliefs and spiritual understanding never
mingle. The latter destroys the former. Discord is the

27 nothingness named error. Harmony is the somethingness
 named Truth.

Like evolving like
 Nature and revelation inform us that like produces

30 like. Divine Science does not gather grapes
from thorns nor figs from thistles. Intelli-
gence never produces non-intelligence; but matter is

PAGE 277

1 ever non-intelligent and therefore cannot spring from
intelligence. To all that is unlike unerring and eternal
3 Mind, this Mind saith, "Thou shalt surely die;" and else-
where the Scripture says that dust returns to dust. The
non-intelligent relapses into its own unreality. Matter
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-
9 mortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal
error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirit-
uality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and can-
12 not be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

Natural history presents vegetables and animals as
preserving their original species, - like reproducing like.

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.
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
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

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-
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-
30 tal, for matter is temporal and is therefore a mortal phe-
nomenon, a human concept, sometimes beautiful, always
erroneous.

PAGE 278

Substance versus supposition

1 Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science re-
veals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter.
3 Divine metaphysics explains away matter.
Spirit is the only substance and consciousness
recognized by divine Science. The material
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
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

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,
15 as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the
consciousness of matter. The admission that there can
be material substance requires another admission, -
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
21 with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme
and all-presence.

The belief of the eternity of matter contradicts the

24 demonstration of life as Spirit, and leads to the conclu-
sion that if man is material, he originated in matter and
must return to dust, - logic which would prove his an-
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-

30 site of life, substance, and intelligence. Mat-
ter, with its mortality, cannot be substantial
if Spirit is substantial and eternal. Which ought to

PAGE 279

1 be substance to us, - the erring, changing, and dying,
the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable,
3 and immortal? A New Testament writer plainly de-
scribes faith, a quality of mind, as "the substance of things
hoped for."

Material mortality

6 The doom of matter establishes the conclusion that
matter, slime, or protoplasm never originated
in the immortal Mind, and is therefore not
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,

12 and they have the advantage of being eternal.
Spirit and matter can neither coexist nor co-
operate, and one can no more create the other than
15 Truth can create error, or vice versa.

In proportion as the belief disappears that life and in-
telligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of

18 being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is
in God. Spirit is reached only through the understand-
ing and demonstration of eternal Life and Truth and
21 Love.

Pantheistic tendencies
 Every system of human philosophy, doctrine, and
medicine is more or less infected with the pantheistic

24 belief that there is mind in matter; but this
belief contradicts alike revelation and right
reasoning. A logical and scientific conclusion is reached
27 only through the knowledge that there are not two
bases of being, matter and mind, but one alone, -
Mind.

30 Pantheism, starting from a material sense of God,
seeks cause in effect, Principle in its idea, and life and
intelligence in matter.

PAGE 280

The things of God are beautiful

1 In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown.
Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not prod-
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
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.

9 Finite belief can never do justice to Truth in any direc-
tion. Finite belief limits all things, and would compress
Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull bone. Such be-
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-
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

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
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
24 in finite forms.

Sensationless body
 Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient
material form, man has a sensationless body; and God,

27 the Soul of man and of all existence, being
perpetual in His own individuality, harmony,
and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities
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

PAGE 281

1 which yields only to the understanding of divine Science,
the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom
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-
6 appears.

God and His image
 Error presupposes man to be both mind and matter.
Divine Science contradicts the corporeal senses, rebukes

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
12 is the image and likeness of perfect Mind, Spirit, divine
Principle.

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is

15 infinite individuality, which supplies all form and come-
liness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual
spiritual man and things.

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
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-
24 ful existence. They are native nothingness, out of which
error would simulate creation through a man formed from
dust.

The true new idea

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
30 the facts of Spirit. The old belief must be
cast out or the new idea will be spilled, and the in-
spiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be

PAGE 282

1 lost. Now, as of old, Truth casts out evils and heals
the sick.

Figures of being

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
6 line. The circle represents the infinite with-
out beginning or end; the straight line represents the
finite, which has both beginning and end. The sphere
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
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

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
18 error, and error has no foothold in Truth. Mind cannot
pass into non-intelligence and matter, nor can non-intel-
ligence become Soul. At no point can these opposites
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

24 material is a material, human, mortal thought, always
governing itself erroneously.

Truth is the intelligence of immortal Mind. Error is

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

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

PAGE 283

1 dispels error. As mortals begin to understand Spirit,
they give up the belief that there is any true existence
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

6 action. Mind is the same Life, Love, and wis-
dom "yesterday, and to-day, and forever."
Matter and its effects - sin, sickness, and
9 death - are states of mortal mind which act, react, and
then come to a stop. They are not facts of Mind. They
are not ideas, but illusions. Principle is absolute. It
12 admits of no error, but rests upon understanding.

But what say prevalent theories? They insist that
Life, or God, is one and the same with material life so-

15 called. They speak of both Truth and error as mind,
and of good and evil as spirit. They claim that to be
life which is but the objective state of material sense, -
18 such as the structural life of the tree and of material
man, - and deem this the manifestation of the one Life,
God.

Spiritual structure

21 This false belief as to what really constitutes life so
detracts from God's character and nature, that the true
sense of His power is lost to all who cling to
24 this falsity. The divine Principle, or Life, can-
not be practically demonstrated in length of days, as it
was by the patriarchs, unless its Science be accurately
27 stated. We must receive the divine Principle in the under-
standing, and live it in daily life; and unless we so do, we
can no more demonstrate Science, than we can teach and
30 illustrate geometry by calling a curve a straight line or a
straight line a sphere.

Are mentality, immortality, consciousness, resident in

PAGE 284

1 matter? It is not rational to say that Mind is infinite,
but dwells in finiteness, - in matter, - or that matter is
3 infinite and the medium of Mind.

Mind never limited
 If God were limited to man or matter, or if the infinite
could be circumscribed within the finite, God would be

6 corporeal, and unlimited Mind would seem
to spring from a limited body; but this is an
impossibility. Infinite Mind can have no starting-point,
9 and can return to no limit. It can never be in bonds,
nor be fully manifested through corporeality.

Material recognition impossible
 Is God's image or likeness matter, or a mortal, sin,

12 sickness, and death? Can matter recognize Mind?
Can infinite Mind recognize matter? Can the
infinite dwell in the finite or know aught un-
15 like the infinite? Can Deity be known through
the material senses? Can the material senses, which re-
ceive no direct evidence of Spirit, give correct testimony
18 as to spiritual life, truth, and love?

The answer to all these questions must forever be in
the negative.

Our physical insensibility to Spirit

21 The physical senses can obtain no proof of God. They
can neither see Spirit through the eye nor hear it through
the ear, nor can they feel, taste, or smell Spirit.
24 Even the more subtile and misnamed ma-
terial elements are beyond the cognizance
of these senses, and are known only by the effects com-
27 monly attributed to them.

According to Christian Science, the only real senses
of man are spiritual, emanating from divine Mind.

30 Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation
nor report goes from material body to Mind. The in-
tercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.

PAGE 285

1 Matter is not sentient and cannot be cognizant of good
or of evil, of pleasure or of pain. Man's individu-
3 ality is not material. This Science of being obtains not
alone hereafter in what men call Paradise, but here
and now; it is the great fact of being for time and
6 eternity.

The human counterfeit
 What, then, is the material personality which suffers,
sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness

9 of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted
likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness,
and death. The unreality of the claim that a mortal is
12 the true image of God is illustrated by the opposite na-
tures of Spirit and matter, Mind and body, for one is
intelligence while the other is non-intelligence.

Material misconceptions

15 Is God a physical personality? Spirit is not physical.
The belief that a material body is man is a false con-
ception of man. The time has come for a
18 finite conception of the infinite and of a ma-
terial body as the seat of Mind to give place
to a diviner sense of intelligence and its manifestations,
21 to the better understanding that Science gives of the
Supreme Being, or divine Principle, and idea.

Salvation is through reform
 By interpreting God as a corporeal Saviour but not as

24 the saving Principle, or divine Love, we shall continue
to seek salvation through pardon and not
through reform, and resort to matter instead
27 of Spirit for the cure of the sick. As mortals
reach, through knowledge of Christian Science, a higher
sense, they will seek to learn, not from matter, but from
30 the divine Principle, God, how to demonstrate the Christ,
Truth, as the healing and saving power.

It is essential to understand, instead of believe, what

PAGE 286

1 relates most nearly to the happiness of being. To seek
Truth through belief in a human doctrine is not to un-
3 derstand the infinite. We must not seek the immutable
and immortal through the finite, mutable, and mortal,
and so depend upon belief instead of demonstration, for
6 this is fatal to a knowledge of Science. The understand-
ing of Truth gives full faith in Truth, and spiritual un-
derstanding is better than all burnt offerings.

9 The Master said, "No man cometh unto the Father
[the divine Principle of being] but by me," Christ,
Life, Truth, Love; for Christ says, "I am the way."
12 Physical causation was put aside from first to
last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the
divine. Principle, Love, creates and governs all that
15 is real.

Goodness a portion of God
 In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term
for God. The Scriptures declare all that He

18 made to be good, like Himself, - good in
Principle and in idea. Therefore the spiritual
universe is good, and reflects God as He is.

Spiritual thoughts

21 God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance
and Life. Material and temporal thoughts are human,
involving error, and since God, Spirit, is the
24 only cause, they lack a divine cause. The
temporal and material are not then creations of Spirit.
They are but counterfeits of the spiritual and eternal.
27 Transitory thoughts are the antipodes of everlasting
Truth, though (by the supposition of opposite qualities)
error must also say, "I am true." But by this saying
30 error, the lie, destroys itself.

Sin, sickness, and death are comprised in human ma-
terial belief, and belong not to the divine Mind. They

PAGE 287

1 are without a real origin or existence. They have neither
Principle nor permanence, but belong, with all that is
3 material and temporal, to the nothingness of error, which
simulates the creations of Truth. All creations of Spirit
are eternal; but creations of matter must return to dust.
6 Error supposes man to be both mental and material.
Divine Science contradicts this postulate and maintains
man's spiritual identity.

Divine allness

9 We call the absence of Truth, error. Truth and error
are unlike. In Science, Truth is divine, and the infinite
 God can have no unlikeness. Did God, Truth,
12 create error? No! "Doth a fountain send
forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" God
being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent
15 or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence?
How can there be more than all?

Neither understanding nor truth accompanies error,

18 nor is error the offshoot of Mind. Evil calls itself some-
thing, when it is nothing. It saith, "I am man, but I am
not the image and likeness of God;" whereas the Scrip-
21 tures declare that man was made in God's likeness.

Error unveiled
 Error is false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spir-
itual identity or foundation, and it has no real existence.

24 The supposition that life, substance, and in-
telligence are in matter, or of it, is an error.
Matter is neither a thing nor a person, but merely the
27 objective supposition of Spirit's opposite. The five mate-
rial senses testify to truth and error as united in a mind
both good and evil. Their false evidence will finally
30 yield to Truth, - to the recognition of Spirit and of the
spiritual creation.

Truth cannot be contaminated by error. The state-

PAGE 288

1 ment that Truth is real necessarily includes the correlated
statement, that error, Truth's unlikeness, is unreal.

The great conflict

3 The suppositional warfare between truth and error is
only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spir-
itual senses and the testimony of the material
6 senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and
flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the un-
derstanding of divine Love.

9 Superstition and understanding can never combine.
When the final physical and moral effects of Christian
Science are fully apprehended, the conflict between truth
12 and error, understanding and belief, Science and material
sense, foreshadowed by the prophets and inaugurated
by Jesus, will cease, and spiritual harmony reign. The
15 lightnings and thunderbolts of error may burst and flash
till the cloud is cleared and the tumult dies away in the
distance. Then the raindrops of divinity refresh the
18 earth. As St. Paul says: "There remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God" (of Spirit).

The chief stones in the temple
 The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are

21 to be found in the following postulates: that Life is God,
good, and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not
to be found in the body; that Spirit is not, and
24 cannot be, materialized; that Life is not subject
to death; that the spiritual real man has no birth, no ma-
terial life, and no death.

The Christ-element

27 Science reveals the glorious possibilities of immortal
man, forever unlimited by the mortal senses.
The Christ-element in the Messiah made him
30 the Way-shower, Truth and Life.

The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have
learned from error, and man's real existence as a child

PAGE 289

1 of God comes to light. Truth demonstrated is eternal
life. Mortal man can never rise from the temporal debris
3 of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns
that God is the only Life. The belief that life and sensa-
tion are in the body should be overcome by the under-
6 standing of what constitutes man as the image of God.
Then Spirit will have overcome the flesh.

Wickedness is not man
 A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little

9 else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin,
lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life
abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life
12 and life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men
sick, sinful, or mortal.

Death but an illusion
 The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still

15 overcomes death proves the "king of terrors" to be but
a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys
with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this
18 shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a
mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe
there is no death-process.

21 The belief that matter has life results, by the universal
law of mortal mind, in a belief in death. So man, tree,
and flower are supposed to die; but the fact remains,
24 that God's universe is spiritual and immortal.

Spiritual offspring
 The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are
contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the

27 material must be untrue. Life is not in matter.
Therefore it cannot be said to pass out of mat-
ter. Matter and death are mortal illusions. Spirit and
30 all things spiritual are the real and eternal.

Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit, - of
Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be

PAGE 290

1 eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I AM, the Be-
ing who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.

Death no advantage

3 If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of man's being
are not in the least understood before what is termed death
overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher spir-
6 itually in the scale of existence on account of
that single experience, but will remain as material as be-
fore the transition, still seeking happiness through a ma-
9 terial, instead of through a spiritual sense of life, and from
selfish and inferior motives. That Life or Mind is finite
and physical or is manifested through brain and nerves,
12 is false. Hence Truth comes to destroy this error and
its effects, - sickness, sin, and death. To the spiritual
class, relates the Scripture: "On such the second death
15 hath no power."

Future purification
 If the change called death destroyed the belief in sin,
sickness, and death, happiness would be won at the mo-

18 ment of dissolution, and be forever permanent;
but this is not so. Perfection is gained only
by perfection. They who are unrighteous shall be un-
21 righteous still, until in divine Science Christ, Truth, re-
moves all ignorance and sin.

Sin is punished
 The sin and error which possess us at the instant of

24 death do not cease at that moment, but endure until the
death of these errors. To be wholly spiritual,
man must be sinless, and he becomes thus only
27 when he reaches perfection. The murderer, though slain
in the act, does not thereby forsake sin. He is no more
spiritual for believing that his body died and learning that
30 his cruel mind died not. His thoughts are no purer until
evil is disarmed by good. His body is as material as his
mind, and vice versa.

PAGE 291

1 The suppositions that sin is pardoned while unfor-
saken, that happiness can be genuine in the midst of
3 sin, that the so-called death of the body frees from sin,
and that God's pardon is aught but the destruction of
sin, - these are grave mistakes. We know that all will
6 be changed "in the twinkling of an eye," when the last
trump shall sound; but this last call of wisdom cannot
come till mortals have already yielded to each lesser call
9 in the growth of Christian character. Mortals need not
fancy that belief in the experience of death will awaken
them to glorified being.

Salvation and probation

12 Universal salvation rests on progression and probation,
and is unattainable without them. Heaven is not a local-
ity, but a divine state of Mind in which all the
15 manifestations of Mind are harmonious and
immortal, because sin is not there and man is
found having no righteousness of his own, but in posses-
18 sion of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.

"In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall
be." So we read in Ecclesiastes. This text has been

21 transformed into the popular proverb, "As the tree
falls, so it must lie." As man falleth asleep, so shall he
awake. As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be
24 after death, until probation and growth shall effect the
needed change. Mind never becomes dust. No resur-
rection from the grave awaits Mind or Life, for the grave
27 has no power over either.

Day of judgment
 No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-
day of wisdom comes hourly and continually,

30 even the judgment by which mortal man is di-
vested of all material error. As for spiritual error there
is none.

PAGE 292

1 When the last mortal fault is destroyed, then the final
trump will sound which will end the battle of Truth with
3 error and mortality; "but of that day and hour, knoweth
no man." Here prophecy pauses. Divine Science alone
can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal
6 the infinite.

Primitive error
 Truth will be to us "the resurrection and the life" only
as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the only

9 immortality of man, can be fettered by the
body, and Life be controlled by death. A sin-
ful, sick, and dying mortal is not the likeness of God, the
12 perfect and eternal.

Matter is the primitive belief of mortal mind, because
this so-called mind has no cognizance of Spirit. To

15 mortal mind, matter is substantial, and evil is
real. The so-called senses of mortals are material.
Hence the so-called life of mortals is dependent on
18 matter.

Explaining the origin of material man and mortal mind,
Jesus said: "Why do ye not understand my speech?

21 Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your
father, the devil [evil], and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode
24 not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,
and the father of it."

Immortal man

27 This carnal material mentality, misnamed mind, is
mortal. Therefore man would be annihilated, were it
not for the spiritual real man's indissoluble
30 connection with his God, which Jesus brought
to light. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed
that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and

PAGE 293

1 that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence
of the reality.

Elementary electricity

3 Electricity is not a vital fluid, but the least material
form of illusive consciousness, - the material mindless-
ness, which forms no link between matter and
6 Mind, and which destroys itself. Matter and
mortal mind are but different strata of human belief. The
grosser substratum is named matter or body; the more
9 ethereal is called mind. This so-called mind and body
is the illusion called a mortal, a mind in matter. In reality
and in Science, both strata, mortal mind and mortal body,
12 are false representatives of man.

The material so-called gases and forces are counter-
feits of the spiritual forces of divine Mind, whose potency

15 is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion and
cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being.
Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality which coun-
18 terfeits the true essence of spirituality or truth, - the
great difference being that electricity is not intelligent,
while spiritual truth is Mind.

The counterfeit forces

21 There is no vapid fury of mortal mind - expressed in
earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity
- and this so-called mind is self-destroyed.
24 The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit
divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, "The anger
of the Lord." In reality, they show the self-destruction
27 of error or matter and point to matter's opposite, the
strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science
brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal har-
30 mony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness
of evil.

Instruments of error
 The five physical senses are the avenues and instru-

PAGE 294

1 ments of human error, and they correspond with error.
These senses indicate the common human belief, that life,
3 substance, and intelligence are a unison of
matter with Spirit. This is pantheism, and
carries within itself the seeds of all error.

6 If man is both mind and matter, the loss of one finger
would take away some quality and quantity of the man,
for matter and man would be one.

Mortal verdict

9 The belief that matter thinks, sees, or feels is not more
real than the belief that matter enjoys and suffers. This
mortal belief, misnamed man, is error, saying:
12 "Matter has intelligence and sensation. Nerves
feel. Brain thinks and sins. The stomach can make a
man cross. Injury can cripple and matter can kill man."
15 This verdict of the so-called material senses victimizes
mortals, taught, as they are by physiology and pathology,
to revere false testimony, even the errors that are destroyed
18 by Truth through spiritual sense and Science.

Mythical pleasure
 The lines of demarcation between immortal man, repre-
senting Spirit, and mortal man, representing the error that

21 life and intelligence are in matter, show the
pleasures and pains of matter to be myths, and
human belief in them to be the father of mythology, in
24 which matter is represented as divided into intelligent gods.
Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is
good and true. Man is neither self-made nor made by
27 mortals. God created man.

Severed members
 The inebriate believes that there is pleasure in intoxica-
tion. The thief believes that he gains something by steal-

30 ing, and the hypocrite that he is hiding himself. The
Science of Mind corrects such mistakes, for Truth demon-
strates the falsity of error.

PAGE 295

Severed members

1 The belief that a severed limb is aching in the old loca-
tion, the sensation seeming to be in nerves which
3 are no longer there, is an added proof of the un-
reliability of physical testimony.

Mortals unlike immortals
 God creates and governs the universe, including man.

6 The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He
evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind
that makes them. Mortal mind would trans-
9 form the spiritual into the material, and then
recover man's original self in order to escape from the
mortality of this error. Mortals are not like immortals,
12 created in God's own image; but infinite Spirit being all,
mortal consciousness will at last yield to the scientific fact
and disappear, and the real sense of being, perfect and
15 forever intact, will appear.

Goodness transparent
 The manifestation of God through mortals is as light
passing through the window-pane. The light and the

18 glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass
is less opaque than the walls. The mortal
mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that
21 one which has lost much materiality - much error - in
order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then,
like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides
24 the sun.

Brainology a myth
 All that is called mortal thought is made up of error.
The theoretical mind is matter, named brain, or mate-

27 rial consciousness, the exact opposite of real
Mind, or Spirit. Brainology teaches that
mortals are created to suffer and die. It further
30 teaches that when man is dead, his immortal soul is
resurrected from death and mortality. Thus error the-
orizes that spirit is born of matter and returns to mat-

PAGE 296

1 ter, and that man has a resurrection from dust; whereas
Science unfolds the eternal verity, that man is the spiritual,
3 eternal reflection of God.

Scientific purgation
 Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of
mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for

6 the immortal. Either here or hereafter, suf-
fering or Science must destroy all illusions
8 regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense
9 and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off.
Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a
false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic
12 matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real,
and eternal.

The so-called pleasures and pains of matter perish,

15 and they must go out under the blaze of Truth, spiritual
sense, and the actuality of being. Mortal belief must lose
all satisfaction in error and sin in order to part with
18 them.

Whether mortals will learn this sooner or later, and
how long they will suffer the pangs of destruction, de-

21 pends upon the tenacity of error.

Mixed testimony
 The knowledge obtained from the corporeal senses
leads to sin and death. When the evidence of Spirit

24 and matter, Truth and error, seems to com-
mingle, it rests upon foundations which time
is wearing away. Mortal mind judges by the testimony
27 of the material senses, until Science obliterates this false
testimony. An improved belief is one step out of error,
and aids in taking the next step and in understanding
30 the situation in Christian Science.

Belief an autocrat
 Mortal belief is a liar from the beginning, not deserving
power. It says to mortals, "You are wretched!" and they

PAGE 297

1 think they are so; and nothing can change this state, until
the belief changes. Mortal belief says, "You are happy!"
3 and mortals are so; and no circumstance can
alter the situation, until the belief on this sub-
ject changes. Human belief says to mortals, "You are
6 sick!" and this testimony manifests itself on the body as
sickness. It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for
an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into
9 the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change
in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the
physical condition.

Self-improvement

12 Erroneous belief is destroyed by truth. Change the
evidence, and that disappears which before seemed real
to this false belief, and the human conscious-
15 ness rises higher. Thus the reality of being
is attained and man found to be immortal. The only
fact concerning any material concept is, that it is neither
18 scientific nor eternal, but subject to change and dis-
solution.

Faith higher than belief
 Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is

21 a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual
evidence, contradicting the testimony of mate-
rial sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the
24 ever-present, is becoming understood. Human thoughts
have their degrees of comparison. Some thoughts are
better than others. A belief in Truth is better than a
27 belief in error, but no mortal testimony is founded on the
divine rock. Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until
belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual under-
30 standing, human thought has little relation to the actual
or divine.

A mortal belief fulfils its own conditions. Sickness,

PAGE 298

1 sin, and death are the vague realities of human conclu-
sions. Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine
3 Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in
spiritual understanding. As a cloud hides the sun it
cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the
6 voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot de-
stroy Science armed with faith, hope, and fruition.

Truth's witness
 What is termed material sense can report only a mor-

9 tal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can
bear witness only to Truth. To material sense,
the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected
12 by Christian Science.

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, in-
volves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, real-

15 ity. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in
matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense
of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never
18 reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal.
When the real is attained, which is announced by Science,
joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spirit-
21 ual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle,
and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead
up to their divine origin, God, and to the spiritual sense
24 of being.

Thought-angels
 Angels are not etherealized human beings, evolving
animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial

27 visitants, flying on spiritual, not material,
pinions. Angels are pure thoughts from God,
winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their indi-
30 vidualism may be. Human conjecture confers upon angels
its own forms of thought, marked with superstitious out-
lines, making them human creatures with suggestive

PAGE 299

1 feathers; but this is only fancy. It has behind it no more
reality than has the sculptor's thought when he carves
3 his "Statue of Liberty," which embodies his concep-
tion of an unseen quality or condition, but which has
no physical antecedent reality save in the artist's own ob-
6 servation and "chambers of imagery."

Our Angelic messengers
 My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door
of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried

9 its fondest earthly hopes. With white fin-
gers they point upward to a new and glo-
rified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels
12 are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings
never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to
the divine Principle of all good, whither every real indi-
15 viduality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving
earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us,
and we entertain "angels unawares."

Knowledge and Truth

18 Knowledge gained from material sense is figuratively
represented in Scripture as a tree, bearing the fruits of
sin, sickness, and death. Ought we not then
21 to judge the knowledge thus obtained to be
untrue and dangerous, since "the tree is known by his
fruit"?

24 Truth never destroys God's idea. Truth is spiritual,
eternal substance, which cannot destroy the right reflec-
tion. Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth,
27 health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the
sun or the mountain; but Science, the sunshine of Truth,
will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial
30 peaks.

Old and new man
 If man were solely a creature of the material senses,
he would have no eternal Principle and would be mutable

PAGE 300

1 and mortal. Human logic is awry when it attempts
to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from
3 matter. Finite sense has no true apprecia-
tion of infinite Principle, God, or of His infi-
nite image or reflection, man. The mirage, which makes
6 trees and cities seem to be where they are not, illustrates
the illusion of material man, who cannot be the image
of God.

9 So far as the scientific statement as to man is under-
stood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true
reflection of God - the real man, or the new man (as
12 St. Paul has it).

The tares and wheat
 The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and
real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im-

15 mutable and perfect. The inharmonious and
self-destructive never touch the harmonious
and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares
18 and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal
sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Sci-
ence separates the wheat from the tares, through the real-
21 ization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting
the divine likeness.

The divine reflection
 Spirit is God, Soul; therefore Soul is not in matter. If

24 Spirit were in matter, God would have no representative,
and matter would be identical with God.
The theory that soul, spirit, intelligence, in-
27 habits matter is taught by the schools. This theory is
unscientific. The universe reflects and expresses the di-
vine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the
30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in
the ray of light which goes out from it. God is re-
vealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love, -

PAGE 301

1 yea, which manifests God's attributes and power, even
as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats
3 the color, form, and action of the person in front of the
mirror.

Few persons comprehend what Christian Science

6 means by the word reflection. To himself, mortal and

material man seems to be substance, but his sense of
substance involves error and therefore is material,

9 temporal.

On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really
substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit,

12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which
constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection
seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual
15 man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is re-
vealed only through divine Science.

Inverted images and ideas
 As God is substance and man is the divine image and

18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only
the substance of good, the substance of Spirit,
not matter. The belief that man has any other
21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks
the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one
Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub-
24 stance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, dis-
ease, and death arise from the false testimony of material
sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the
27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image
of Mind and substance with everything turned upside
down.

30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial
dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead
of spiritual. Immortality is not bounded by mortality.

PAGE 302

1 Soul is not compassed by finiteness. Principle is not to
be found in fragmentary ideas.

Identity not lost

3 The material body and mind are temporal, but the
real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the
5 real man is not lost, but found through this
6 explanation; for the conscious infinitude of
existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and re-
mains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose
9 aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his. The
notion that mind is in matter, and that the so-called pleas-
ures and pains, the birth, sin, sickness, and death of
12 matter, are real, is a mortal belief; and this belief is all
that will ever be lost.

Definition of man
 Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that

15 harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and
is always beyond and above the mortal illu-
sion of any life, substance and intelligence
18 as existent in matter. This statement is based on fact,
not fable. The Science of being reveals man as perfect,
even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind,
21 of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all
being, and because this real man is governed by Soul
instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called
24 laws of matter.

God is Love. He is therefore the divine, infinite Prin-
ciple, called Person or God. Man's true consciousness

27 is in the mental, not in any bodily or personal likeness
to Spirit. Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness
of divinity, though mortal sense would fain have us so
30 believe.

Mental propagation
 Even in Christian Science, reproduction by Spirit's
individual ideas is but the reflection of the creative power

PAGE 303

1 of the divine Principle of those ideas. The reflection,
through mental manifestation, of the multitudinous
3 forms of Mind which people the realm of
the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle
governing the reflection. Multiplication of God's chil-
6 dren comes from no power of propagation in matter, it
is the reflection of Spirit.

The minutiae of lesser individualities reflect the one di-

9 vine individuality and are comprehended in and formed
by Spirit, not by material sensation. Whatever reflects
Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, is spiritually conceived and
12 brought forth; but the statement that man is conceived
and evolved both spiritually and materially, or by both
God and man, contradicts this eternal truth. All the
15 vanity of the ages can never make both these contraries
true. Divine Science lays the axe at the root of the illu-
sion that life, or mind, is formed by or is in the material
18 body, and Science will eventually destroy this illusion
through the self-destruction of all error and the beatified
understanding of the Science of Life.

Error defined

21 The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holi-
ness and unholiness, mingle in man, - that
mortal, material man is the likeness of God
24 and is himself a creator, - is a fatal error.

Man's entity spiritual
 God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would
be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be

27 without a witness or proof of His own na-
ture. Spiritual man is the image or idea of
God, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep-
30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence
before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the
apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from

PAGE 304

1 God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and
Truth.

Man inseparable from Love

3 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material
sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and good-
ness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Nei-
6 ther death, nor life, . . . nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
9 the love of God." This is the doctrine of Christian
Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its
manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into
12 sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can
never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind
nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed
15 by God, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal.

Harmony natural
 Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled
by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life

18 of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at
the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not
contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful
21 as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.
The science of music governs tones. If mortals caught
harmony through material sense, they would lose har-
24 mony, if time or accident robbed them of material sense.
To be master of chords and discords, the science of
music must be understood. Left to the decisions
27 of material sense, music is liable to be misappre-
hended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief,
instead of understanding, music is, must be, imper-
30 fectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Sci-
ence of being, - thrusting aside his divine Principle as
incomprehensible, - is abandoned to conjectures, left in

PAGE 305

1 the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions,
subjected to material sense which is discord. A discon-
3 tented, discordant mortal is no more a man than discord
is music.

Human reflection
 A picture in the camera or a face reflected in the mirror

6 is not the original, though resembling it. Man, in the
likeness of his Maker, reflects the central light
of being, the invisible God. As there is no cor-
9 poreality in the mirrored form, which is but a reflection,
so man, like all things real, reflects God, his divine Prin-
ciple, not in a mortal body.

12 Gender also is a quality, not of God, but a character-
istic of mortal mind. The verity that God's image is not
a creator, though he reflects the creation of Mind, God,
15 constitutes the underlying reality of reflection. "Then
answered Jesus and said unto them: Verily, verily I say
unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
18 seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise."

Inverted images
 The inverted images presented by the senses, the de-

21 flections of matter as opposed to the Science of spirit-
ual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In
the illusion of life that is here to-day and
24 gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were
it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in
divine Science, destroys all error and brings immor-
27 tality to light. Because man is the reflection of his
Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, de-
cay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not
30 divine.

Jewish traditions
 The Sadducees reasoned falsely about the resurrec-
tion, but not so blindly as the Pharisees, who believed

PAGE 306

1 error to be as immortal as Truth. The Pharisees thought
that they could raise the spiritual from the material. They
3 would first make life result in death, and then
resort to death to reproduce spiritual life.
Jesus taught them how death was to be overcome by
6 spiritual Life, and demonstrated this beyond cavil.

Divinity not childless
 Life demonstrates Life. The immortality of Soul makes
man immortal. If God, who is Life, were parted for a

9 moment from His reflection, man, during that
moment there would be no divinity reflected.
The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father would be
12 childless, - no Father.

If Life or Soul and its representative, man, unite for
a period and then are separated as by a law of divorce to

15 be brought together again at some uncertain future time
and in a manner unknown, - and this is the general
religious opinion of mankind, - we are left without a
18 rational proof of immortality. But man cannot be sep-
arated for an instant from God, if man reflects God.
Thus Science proves man's existence to be intact.

Thought-forms

21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest
as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the mate-
rial senses than are the Soul-created forms
24 to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as per-
manent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the
material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding
27 to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,
- is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and
eternal.

30 God's man, spiritually created, is not material and
mortal.

The serpent's whisper
 The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream,

PAGE 307

1 the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life
and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter.
3 This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, in-
sists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,
"Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real
6 and eternal as Truth.

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that
there is more than one intelligence or God. It says:

9 "There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God
makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him.
Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will
12 put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem
to have life as much as God, Spirit, who is the only life."

Bad results from error
 This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found

15 to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an ex-
istence which ends in death. Error charges
its lie to Truth and says: "The Lord knows
18 it. He has made man immortal and material, out of mat-
ter instead of Spirit." Thus error partakes of its own
nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter
21 as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin
or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal,
a part of God's creation, and so weighs against our course
24 Spiritward.

Higher statutes
 Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul
of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man

27 was not created from a material basis, nor
bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never
made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher
30 law of Mind.

The great question
 Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice
of Truth still calls: "Adam, where art thou? Conscious-

PAGE 308

1 ness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief
that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou
3 in the living faith that there is and can be but
one God, and keeping His commandment?"
Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind gov-
6 erning man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the
beginning, and will hide from the demand, "Where art
thou?" This awful demand, "Adam, where art thou?"
9 is met by the admission from the head, heart, stomach,
blood, nerves, etc.: "Lo, here I am, looking for happiness
and life in the body, but finding only an illusion, a blend-
12 ing of false claims, false pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and
death."

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth,

15 and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.

Wrestling of Jacob
 Jacob was alone, wrestling with error, - struggling
with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence

18 as existent in matter with its false pleasures
and pains, - when an angel, a message from
Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew,
21 or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and
Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual
strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said
24 the spiritual evangel: "Let me go, for the day breaketh;"
that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.
But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need
27 of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light
until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was
asked, "What is thy name?" he straightway answered;
30 and then his name was changed to Israel, for "as a prince"
had he prevailed and had "power with God and with
men." Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, "Tell me,

PAGE 309

1 I pray thee, thy name;" but this appellation was withheld,
for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name-
3 less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which,
to use the word of the Psalmist, restored his Soul, - gave
him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material
6 sense.

Israel the new name
 The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had
conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit

9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.
He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, -
a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought
12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who
through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the
power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children
15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the
children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.
If these children should go astray, and forget that Life
18 is God, good, and that good is not in elements which are
not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals
the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back
21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian
Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter,
even as the gospel teaches.

Life never structural

24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for in-
finite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to
have an intelligence separate from his Maker.
27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there
can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life,
when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is
30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never struc-
tural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its
own formations.

PAGE 310

Thought seen as substance

1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the
artist's thought objectified. The human belief fancies
3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what
is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?
Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force;
6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be
understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but
without material accompaniments. The potter is not in
9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.
God is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

The central intelligence
 Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees

12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun
is not affected by the revolution of the earth.
So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched
15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence
around which circle harmoniously all things in the sys-
tems of Mind.

Soul imperishable

18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there
is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that
soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If
21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh in-
stead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of mate-
rial sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die.
24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death
is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of
Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and
27 if Spirit should lose Life as God, good, then Spirit, which
has no other existence, would be annihilated.

Mind is God, and God is not seen by material sense,

30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot dis-
cern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in
Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense,

PAGE 311

1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth
of being.

3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent
on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. God is Mind:
all that Mind, God, is, or hath made, is good, and He
6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

Sin only of the flesh
 Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no ele-
ment of self-destruction. is man lost spiritually? No,

9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is
of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists
here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in
12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul,
which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

Soul impeccable
 Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense

15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a
sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spir-
itual truth. This state of error is the mortal
18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is
directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long
as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in
21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be-
ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it
will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law
24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through har-
mony and immortality.

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not

27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal
belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all
supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as
30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelli-
gence. but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by
these phases of mortality.

PAGE 312

Sense-dreams

1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material
sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is
3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in
Science. That which material sense calls
intangible, is found to be substance. What to material
6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-
dream vanishes and reality appears.

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as

9 matter. People say, "Man is dead;" but this death is
the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter. The
matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he
12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that
matter has caused his death.

Vain ecstasies
 People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal

15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their
hearts; yet God is love, and without Love,
God, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try
18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet God is
 Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's
eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in
21 a finite personal God; while God is infinite Love, which
must be unlimited.

Man-made theories
 Our theories are based on finite premises, which can-

24 not penetrate beyond matter. A personal sense of God
and of man's capabilities necessarily limits
faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It
27 divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit,
the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the
intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate
30 drug.

The one anointed
 Jesus' spiritual origin and his demonstration of divine
Principle richly endowed him and entitled him to sonship

PAGE 313

1 in Science. He was the son of a virgin. The term
Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to give the full and
3 proper translation of the Greek), may be ren-
dered "Jesus the anointed," Jesus the God-
crowned or the divinely royal man, as it is said of him in
6 the first chapter of Hebrews: -
     Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee
     With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

9 With this agrees another passage in the same chapter,
which refers to the Son as "the brightness of His [God's]
glory, and the express [expressed] image of His person
12 [infinite Mind]." It is noteworthy that the phrase "ex-
press image" in the Common Version is, in the Greek
Testament, character. Using this word in its higher mean-
15 ing, we may assume that the author of this remarkable
epistle regarded Christ as the Son of God, the royal
reflection of the infinite; and the cause given for the ex-
18 altation of Jesus, Mary's son, was that he "loved right-
eousness and hated iniquity." The passage is made
even clearer in the translation of the late George R.
21 Noyes, D.D.: "Who, being a brightness from His glory,
and an image of His being."

Jesus the Scientist
 Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that

24 ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material
surface of things, and found the spiritual
cause. To accommodate himself to imma-
27 ture ideas of spiritual power, - for spirituality was pos
sessed only in a limited degree even by his disciples, -
Jesus called the body, which by spiritual power he
30 raised from the grave, "flesh and bones." To show
that the substance of himself was Spirit and the body

PAGE 314

1 no more perfect because of death and no less material
until the ascension (his further spiritual exaltation),
3 Jesus waited until the mortal or fleshly sense had re-
linquished the belief of substance-matter, and spiritual
sense had quenched all earthly yearnings. Thus he found
6 the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were
inseparable as God and His reflection or spiritual man.
Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating
9 the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal.

The bodily resurrection
 The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed
plainly that their material views were the parents of their

12 wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of repro-
ducing his body, - knowing, as he did, that
Mind was the builder, - and said, "Destroy this temple,
15 and in three days I will raise it up," they thought that he
meant their material temple instead of his body. To such
materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and
18 unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre,
seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of
the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he
21 presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of
Life and substance.

Opposition of materialists
 Because of mortals' material and sinful belief, the

24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher
his demonstration of divine Science carried
the problem of being, and the more dis-
27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle,
Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners
and to those who, depending on doctrines and material
30 laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submis-
sive to death as being in supposed accord with the
inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by

PAGE 315

1 his resurrection, and said: "Whosoever liveth and be-
lieveth in me shall never die."

Hebrew theology

3 That saying of our Master, "I and my Father are one,"
separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.
His better understanding of God was a rebuke
6 to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid
no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind
instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not
9 Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science
brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

The true sonship
 The opposite and false views of the people hid from

12 their sense Christ's sonship with God. They could not
discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal
minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts
15 were filled with mortal error, instead of with God's spirit-
ual idea as presented by Christ Jesus. The likeness of
God we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spir-
18 itual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only
when we subdue sin and prove man's heritage, the liberty
of the sons of God.

Immaculate conception

21 Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him
to demonstrate the facts of being, - to prove irrefutably
how spiritual Truth destroys material error,
24 heals sickness, and overcomes death. The
divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and pre-
sented an illustration of creation. The history of Jesus
27 shows him to have been more spiritual than all other
earthly personalities.

Jesus as mediator
 Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed

30 to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother,
Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh,
between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrat-

PAGE 316

1 ing the way of divine Science, he became the way of
salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mor-
3 tals may learn how to escape from evil. The
real man being linked by Science to his Maker,
mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal
6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to
God, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth,
was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of
9 Spirit over the flesh, - to show that Truth is made
manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body,
healing sickness and destroying sin.

Spiritual government

12 Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence
the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory
religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness
15 and the blindness of popular belief, which led
to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed
by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ-
18 man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion,
and thus proved that truth was the master of death.
Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit cre-
21 ates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that
blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man
dominion over all the earth.

Deadness in sin

24 The spiritual idea of God, as presented by Jesus, was
scourged in person, and its Principle was rejected. That
man was accounted a criminal who could
27 prove God's divine power by healing the
sick, casting out evils, spiritualizing materialistic beliefs,
and raising the dead, - those dead in trespasses and
30 sins, satisfied with the flesh, resting on the basis of mat-
ter, blind to the possibilities of Spirit and its correla-
tive truth.

PAGE 317

1