V. ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED…

V. ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man. - JESUS.

Earliest investigations

100:1 MESMERISM or animal magnetism was first brought into notice by Mesmer in Germany in 1775. Ac- 100:3 cording to the American Cyclopaedia, he regarded this so-called force, which he said could be ex- erted by one living organism over another, as 100:6 a means of alleviating disease. His propositions were as follows:

"There exists a mutual influence between the celestial 100:9 bodies, the earth, and animated things. Animal bodies are susceptible to the influence of this agent, disseminat- ing itself through the substance of the nerves." 100:12 In 1784, the French government ordered the medical faculty of Paris to investigate Mesmer's theory and to report upon it. Under this order a commission was 100:15 appointed, and Benjamin Franklin was one of the com- missioners. This commission reported to the govern- ment as follows:

100:18 "In regard to the existence and utility of animal mag- netism, we have come to the unanimous conclusions that there is no proof of the existence of the animal magnetic 101:1 fluid; that the violent effects, which are observed in the public practice of magnetism, are due to manipula- 101:3 tions, or to the excitement of the imagination and the impressions made upon the senses; and that there is one more fact to be recorded in the history of the errors of 101:6 the human mind, and an important experiment upon the power of the imagination."

Clairvoyance, magnetism

In 1837, a committee of nine persons was appointed, 101:9 among whom were Roux, Bouillaud, and Clo- quet, which tested during several sessions the phenomena exhibited by a reputed clairvoyant. Their 101:12 report stated the results as follows:

"The facts which had been promised by Monsieur Berna [the magnetizer] as conclusive, and as adapted to 101:15 throw light on physiological and therapeutical questions, are certainly not conclusive in favor of the doctrine of animal magnetism, and have nothing in common with 101:18 either physiology or therapeutics."

This report was adopted by the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris.

Personal conclusions

101:21 The author's own observations of the workings of animal magnetism convince her that it is not a remedial agent, and that its effects upon 101:24 those who practise it, and upon their subjects who do not resist it, lead to moral and to physical death.

If animal magnetism seems to alleviate or to cure dis- 101:27 ease, this appearance is deceptive, since error cannot remove the effects of error. Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort. In no instance is the effect of 101:30 animal magnetism, recently called hypnotism, other than the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from it is proportional to one's faith in esoteric magic.

Mere negation

102:1 Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation, for God governs all that is real, harmonious, and eternal, and 102:3 His power is neither animal nor human. Its basis being a belief and this belief animal, in Science animal magnetism, mesmerism, or hypnotism is 102:6 a mere negation, possessing neither intelligence, power, nor reality, and in sense it is an unreal concept of the so- called mortal mind.

102:9 There is but one real attraction, that of Spirit. The pointing of the needle to the pole symbolizes this all- embracing power or the attraction of God, divine Mind.

102:12 The planets have no more power over man than over his Maker, since God governs the universe; but man, reflecting God's power, has dominion over all the earth 102:15 and its hosts.

Hidden agents

The mild forms of animal magnetism are disappear- ing, and its aggressive features are coming to the front. 102:18 The looms of crime, hidden in the dark re- cesses of mortal thought, are every hour weav- ing webs more complicated and subtle. So secret are the 102:21 present methods of animal magnetism that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires. The following 102:24 is an extract from the Boston Herald:

"Mesmerism is a problem not lending itself to an easy explanation and development. It implies the exercise 102:27 of despotic control, and is much more likely to be abused by its possessor, than otherwise employed, for the in- dividual or society."

Mental despotism

102:30 Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its so- called despotism is but a phase of nothingness. Christian Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently 103:1 promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community. The Apostle Paul refers to the 103:3 personification of evil as "the god of this world," and further defines it as dishonesty and craftiness. Sin was the Assyrian moon-god.

Liberation of mental powers

103:6 The destruction of the claims of mortal mind through Science, by which man can escape from sin and mortality, blesses the whole human fam- 103:9 ily. As in the beginning, however, this libera- tion does not scientifically show itself in a knowledge of both good and evil, for the latter is unreal. 103:12 On the other hand, Mind-science is wholly separate from any half-way impertinent knowledge, because Mind- science is of God and demonstrates the divine Principle, 103:15 working out the purposes of good only. The maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all. Evil is a suppositional lie.

The genus of error

103:18 As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and 103:21 is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful. This belief has not one qual- ity of Truth. It is either ignorant or malicious. The 103:24 malicious form of hypnotism ultimates in moral idiocy. The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they anni- hilate the fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy 103:27 pretensions, like silly moths, singe their own wings and fall into dust.

Thought-transference

In reality there is no /mortal/ mind, and conse- 103:30 quently no transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being are of God. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for 104:1 scientific thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man.

104:3 When Christian Science and animal magnetism are both comprehended, as they will be at no distant date, it will be seen why the author of this book has been 104:6 so unjustly persecuted and belied by wolves in sheep's clothing.

Agassiz, the celebrated naturalist and author, has 104:9 wisely said: "Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered before. Lastly, 104:12 they say they have always believed it."

Perfection of divine government

Christian Science goes to the bottom of mental action, and reveals the theodicy which indicates the rightness of 104:15 all divine action, as the emanation of divine Mind, and the consequent wrongness of the opposite so-called action, - evil, occultism, 104:18 necromancy, mesmerism, animal magnetism, hypnotism.

Adulteration of Truth

The medicine of Science is divine Mind; and dishonesty, sensuality, falsehood, revenge, malice, are animal pro- 104:21 pensities and by no means the mental quali- ties which heal the sick. The hypnotizer employs one error to destroy another. If he heals sick- 104:24 ness through a belief, and a belief originally caused the sickness, it is a case of the greater error overcoming the lesser. This greater error thereafter occupies the ground, 104:27 leaving the case worse than before it was grasped by the stronger error.

Motives considered

Our courts recognize evidence to prove the motive as 104:30 well as the commission of a crime. Is it not clear that the human mind must move the body to a wicked act? Is not mortal mind the mur- 105:1 derer? The hands, without mortal mind to direct them, could not commit a murder.

Mental crimes

105:3 Courts and juries judge and sentence mortals in order to restrain crime, to prevent deeds of violence or to punish them. To say that these tribunals have no 105:6 jurisdiction over the carnal or mortal mind, would be to contradict precedent and to admit that the power of human law is restricted to matter, while mortal 105:9 mind, evil, which is the real outlaw, defies justice and is recommended to mercy. Can matter commit a crime? Can matter be punished? Can you separate the men- 105:12 tality from the body over which courts hold jurisdiction? Mortal mind, not matter, is the criminal in every case; and human law rightly estimates crime, and courts rea- 105:15 sonably pass sentence, according to the motive.

Important decision

When our laws eventually take cognizance of mental crime and no longer apply legal rulings wholly to physical 105:18 offences, these words of Judge Parmenter of Boston will become historic: "I see no reason why metaphysics is not as important to medicine as to 105:21 mechanics or mathematics."

Evil let loose

Whoever uses his developed mental powers like an es- caped felon to commit fresh atrocities as opportunity oc- 105:24 curs is never safe. God will arrest him. Di- vine justice will manacle him. His sins will be millstones about his neck, weighing him down to the 105:27 depths of ignominy and death. The aggravation of er- ror foretells its doom, and confirms the ancient axiom: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

The misuse of mental power

105:30 The distance from ordinary medical prac- tice to Christian Science is full many a league in the line of light; but to go in healing from the use of 106:1 inanimate drugs to the criminal misuse of human will- power, is to drop from the platform of common manhood 106:3 into the very mire of iniquity, to work against the free course of honesty and justice, and to push vainly against the current running heavenward.

Proper self-government

106:6 Like our nation, Christian Science has its Declaration of Independence. God has endowed man with inalien- able rights, among which are self-government, 106:9 reason, and conscience. Man is properly self- governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.

106:12 Man's rights are invaded when the divine order is in- terfered with, and the mental trespasser incurs the divine penalty due this crime.

Right methods

106:15 Let this age, which sits in judgment on Christian Science, sanction only such methods as are demonstrable in Truth and known by their fruit, and classify 106:18 all others as did St. Paul in his great epistle to the Galatians, when he wrote as follows:

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are 106:21 these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, /witchcraft/, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, 106:24 revellings and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But 106:27 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

VI. SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. - PAUL.

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. - JESUS.

Christian Science discovered

107:1 In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and 107:3 named my discovery Christian Science. God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the ab- 107:6 solute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.

Mission of Christian Science

This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, "God with us," - the sovereign ever-pres- 107:9 ence, delivering the children of men from every ill "that flesh is heir to." Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are 107:12 inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts ac- quaint themselves intelligently with God.

Discontent with life

107:15 Feeling so perpetually the false consciousness that life inheres in the body, yet remembering that in reality God is our Life, we may well tremble 107:18 in the prospect of those days in which we must say, "I have no pleasure in them."

108:1 Whence came to me this heavenly conviction, - a con- viction antagonistic to the testimony of the physical senses? 108:3 According to St. Paul, it was "the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power." It was the divine law of Life and Love, unfolding to me 108:6 the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sen- sation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, "the 108:9 price of learning love," establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer.

Demonstrable evidence

108:12 My conclusions were reached by allowing the evidence of this revelation to multiply with mathematical certainty and the lesser demonstration to prove the 108:15 greater, as the product of three multiplied by three, equalling nine, proves conclusively that three times three duodecillions must be nine duodecillions, - not 108:18 a fraction more, not a unit less.

Light shining in darkness

When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, 108:21 I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever- 108:24 present; that the opposite of Truth, - called error, sin, sickness, disease, death, - is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense 108:27 evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names /matter/ thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.

New lines of thought

108:30 My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed /mind/ produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, set my thoughts to work in new channels, 109:1 and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in 109:3 Mind-science.

Scientific evidence

Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind 109:6 and idea. This great fact is not, however, seen to be supported by sensible evidence, until its divine Principle is demonstrated by healing the sick and 109:9 thus proved absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion can be reached.

Solitary research

For three years after my discovery, I sought the solu- 109:12 tion of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scrip- tures and read little else, kept aloof from so- ciety, and devoted time and energies to dis- 109:15 covering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, 109:18 and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute 109:21 conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and dem- onstration. The revelation of Truth in the understand- ing came to me gradually and apparently through divine 109:24 power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: "Unto us a child is born, . . . and his name shall be 109:27 called Wonderful."

Jesus once said of his lessons: "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, 109:30 he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John vii. 16,17.)

God's allness learned

The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omni- 110:1 presence, omniscience, - Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, - contradict 110:3 forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval exist- ence as the radiant reality of God's creation, 110:6 in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wis- dom good.

Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful 110:9 unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, - man's perfecti- bility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on 110:12 earth.

Scriptural foundations

In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were 110:15 illumined; reason and revelation were recon- ciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue 110:18 taught me the Science contained in this book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor pen can over- throw it. This book may be distorted by shallow criti- 110:21 cism or by careless or malicious students, and its ideas may be temporarily abused and misrepresented; but the Science and truth therein will forever remain to be dis- 110:24 cerned and demonstrated.

The demonstration lost and found

Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science to heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost 110:27 sight of, and must again be spiritually dis- cerned, taught, and demonstrated according to Christ's command, with "signs following." 110:30 Its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe on Christ and spiritually understand Truth.

Mystical antagonists

No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of 111:1 agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Chris- 111:3 tian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.

Optical illustration of Science

111:6 Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than is the science of numbers, though departing 111:9 from the realm of the physical, as the Science of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to the name of Science. The Principle of divine metaphysics 111:12 is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utiliza- tion of the power of Truth over error; its rules demon- strate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted 111:15 and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the ex- planation of optics rejects the incidental or inverted image and shows what this inverted image is meant to 111:18 represent.

Pertinent proposal

A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford Uni- versity, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, 111:21 - an essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical effects to physical causes rather than to a final spiritual cause, - is one of 111:24 many incidents which show that Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality.

Confirmatory tests

After a lengthy examination of my discovery and its 111:27 demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evi- dent to me, - that Mind governs the body, not partially but wholly. I submitted my 111:30 metaphysical system of treating disease to the broad- est practical tests. Since then this system has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever scien- 112:1 tifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.

One school of Truth

112:3 Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, there- fore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who de- 112:6 part from this method forfeit their claims to belong to its school, and they become adher- ents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some 112:9 other school. By this is meant that they adopt and ad- here to some particular system of human opinions. Al- though these opinions may have occasional gleams of 112:12 divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not 112:15 scientifically Christian.

Unchanging Principle

From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude 112:18 come spiritual rules, laws, and their demon- stration, which, like the great Giver, are "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" for thus are 112:21 the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea charac- terized in the epistle to the Hebrews.

On sandy foundations

Any theory of Christian Science, which departs from 112:24 what has already been stated and proved to be true, af- fords no foundation upon which to establish a genuine school of this Science. Also, if any 112:27 so-called new school claims to be Christian Science, and yet uses another author's discoveries without giving that author proper credit, such a school is erroneous, for it 112:30 inculcates a breach of that divine commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou shalt not steal."

Principle and practice

God is the Principle of divine metaphysics. As there 113:1 is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demon- 113:3 stration of this divine Principle. The letter of Science plentifully reaches humanity to-day, but its spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part, 113:6 the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. With- out this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, - pulseless, cold, inanimate.

Reversible propositions

113:9 The fundamental propositions of divine metaphysics are summarized in the four following, to me, /self-evident/ propositions. Even if reversed, these proposi- 113:12 tions will be found to agree in statement and proof, showing mathematically their exact relation to Truth. De Quincey says mathematics has not a foot to 113:15 stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.

1. God is All-in-all. 2. God is good. Good is Mind. 113:18 3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. 4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. - Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipo- 113:21 tent God, Life.

Which of the denials in proposition four is true? Both are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture, 113:24 I find that God is true, "but every [mortal] man a liar."

Metaphysical inversions

The divine metaphysics of Christian Science, like the 113:27 method in mathematics, proves the rule by inversion. For example: There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no 113:30 mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in mat- ter; no matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter in good, and no good in matter.

Definition of mortal mind

114:1 Usage classes both evil and good together as /mind/; therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sin- 114:3 ful humanity /mortal mind/, - meaning by this term the flesh opposed to Spirit, the human mind and evil in contradistinction to the divine Mind, or 114:6 Truth and good. The spiritually unscientific definition of mind is based on the evidence of the physical senses, which makes minds many and calls /mind/ both human and 114:9 divine.

In Science, Mind is /one/, including noumenon and phe- nomena, God and His thoughts.

Imperfect terminology

114:12 Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an improper use of the word /mind/. As Mind is immortal, the phrase /mortal mind/ implies something un- 114:15 true and therefore unreal; and as the phrase is used in teaching Christian Science, it is meant to designate that which has no real existence. Indeed, if 114:18 a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would be used; but in expressing the new tongue we must sometimes recur to the old and imperfect, and the new 114:21 wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of the letter.

Causation mental

Christian Science explains all cause and effect as men- 114:24 tal, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities 114:27 of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmoni- ous, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed /mat- 114:30 ter/ is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author /mortal mind/.

Philological inadequacy

Apart from the usual opposition to everything new, 115:1 the one great obstacle to the reception of that spiritual- ity, through which the understanding of Mind-science 115:3 comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for metaphysical statements, and the consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make 115:6 them comprehensible to any reader, who has not person- ally demonstrated Christian Science as brought forth in my discovery. Job says: "The ear trieth words, as the 115:9 mouth tasteth meat." The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue.

115:12 SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF IMMORTAL MIND

Divine synonyms

GOD: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.

Divine image

115:15 MAN: God's spiritual idea, individual, per- fect, eternal.

Divine reflection

IDEA: An image in Mind; the immediate 115:18 object of understanding. - /Webster/.

SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND

/First Degree:/ Depravity.

Unreality

115:21 PHYSICAL. Evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, de- ceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, 115:24 death.

/Second Degree:/ Evil beliefs disappearing.

Transitional qualities

MORAL. Humanity, honesty, affection, com- passion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance. 116:1 /Third Degree:/ Understanding.

Reality

SPIRITUAL. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, 116:3 spiritual power, love, health, holiness.

Spiritual universe

In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as God's image appears. Science so reverses the evidence 116:6 before the corporeal human senses, as to make this Scriptural testimony true in our hearts, "The last shall be first, and the first last," so that God 116:9 and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and must of necessity be, - all-inclusive.

Aim of Science

A correct view of Christian Science and of its adapta- 116:12 tion to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen. Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of 116:15 Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical enemies, - even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease, and death, - nor insist upon the fact 116:18 that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.

Divine personality

Christian Science strongly emphasizes the thought that 116:21 God is not /corporeal/, but /incorporeal/, - that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.

116:24 As the words /person/ and /personal/ are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity 116:27 and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite /Person/, - in the sense of infinite personality, but 116:30 not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.

117:1 The term /individuality/ is also open to objections, be- cause an individual may be one of a series, one of many, 117:3 as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is /One/, - not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.

Spiritual language

117:6 God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physi- cal nature and significance to the Supreme 117:9 Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do this. God's essential language is spoken of in the last chapter of Mark's Gospel as the new tongue, the spir- 117:12 itual meaning of which is attained through "signs following."

The miracles of Jesus

Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure lan- 117:15 guage of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by simili- tudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demon- 117:18 strating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the divine Principle involved in the miracles 117:21 (marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh.

Opacity of the senses

117:24 Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely to human reason; and because of opaci- ty to the true light, human reason dimly re- 117:27 flects and feebly transmits Jesus' works and words. Truth is a revelation.

Leaven of Truth

Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the 117:30 Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he de- fined as human doctrines. His parable of the "leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 118:1 of meal, till the whole was leavened," impels the infer- ence that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ 118:3 and its spiritual interpretation, - an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration. 118:6 Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visi- 118:9 ble world?

Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally 118:12 glorified in man's spiritual freedom.

The divine and human contrasted

In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spirit- 118:15 ual laws emanating from the invisible and in- finite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by 118:18 a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically pre- sented as three measures of meal, - that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust 118:21 is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of /laws/. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes 118:24 the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.

Certain contradictions

The definitions of material law, as given by natural 118:27 science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual. Therefore they con- 118:30 tradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down to earth.

Unescapable dilemma

119:1 When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we 119:3 cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, - we disown the Al- mighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They 119:6 either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and con- 119:9 sider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the cre- ator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of 119:12 matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disas- ters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpet- 119:15 ual misrule in the form and under the name of natural law.

God and nature

In one sense God is identical with nature, but this na- 119:18 ture is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The law- giver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal 119:21 of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is repre- sented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature 119:24 of Spirit, God.

The sun and Soul

In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it contradicts the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth 119:27 is in motion and the sun at rest. As astron- omy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science re- 119:30 verses the seeming relation of Soul and body and makes body tributary to Mind. Thus it is with man, who is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it 120:1 seems otherwise to finite sense. But we shall never under- stand this while we admit that soul is in body or mind in 120:3 matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence. Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is God's 120:6 image.

Reversal of testimony

Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the funda- 120:9 mental facts of being. Then the question in- evitably arises: Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter 120:12 can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science in which health is normal and disease is abnormal.

Health and the senses

120:15 Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the sub- ject of health. The Science of Mind-healing 120:18 shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. There- fore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testi- 120:21 mony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows 120:24 false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.

Any conclusion /pro/ or /con/, deduced from supposed sen- sation in matter or from matter's supposed consciousness 120:27 of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate and so leads to disease.

Historic illustrations

120:30 When Columbus gave freer breath to the globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and star- 121:1 vation stared him in the face; but sterner still would have been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the favor- 121:3 ite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.

Copernicus mapped out the stellar system, and before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields 121:6 were incorrectly explored.

Perennial beauty

The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher 121:9 revelation than the horoscope was to them dis- played upon the empyrean, earth and heaven were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God's 121:12 perennial and happy sunshine, golden with Truth. So we have goodness and beauty to gladden the heart; but man, left to the hypotheses of material sense unexplained 121:15 by Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate star - "a weary searcher for a viewless home."

Astronomic unfoldings

The earth's diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical 121:18 eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead of the earth from west to east. Until rebuked by clearer views of the everlasting facts, this 121:21 false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment and in- duced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often to be erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple 121:24 rule that the greater controls the lesser. The sun is the central stillness, so far as our solar system is concerned, and the earth revolves about the sun once a year, besides 121:27 turning daily on its own axis.

As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflec- 121:30 tion of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to divine Science as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.

Opposing testimony

122:1 The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, - 122:3 assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly un- derstood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false 122:6 witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, - the actual reign of harmony on earth. The material senses' re- versal of the Science of Soul was practically exposed nine- 122:9 teen hundred years ago by the demonstrations of Jesus; yet these so-called senses still make mortal mind tributary to mortal body, and ordain certain sections of matter, such 122:12 as brain and nerves, as the seats of pain and pleasure, from which matter reports to this so-called mind its status of happiness or misery.

Testimony of the senses

122:15 The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet 122:18 and mingle. The barometer, - that little prophet of storm and sunshine, denying the testimony of the senses, - points to fair weather in the midst of murky 122:21 clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall for himself.

Spiritual sense of life

122:24 To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein takes away life; but to spiritual sense and in Science, Life goes on unchanged and 122:27 being is eternal. Temporal life is a false sense of existence.

Ptolemaic and psychical error

Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul 122:30 and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system. They insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tribu- tary to matter. Astronomical science has destroyed the 123:1 false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as 123:3 to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and Principle of man will then appear. The Ptole- maic blunder could not affect the harmony of 123:6 being as does the error relating to soul and body, which reverses the order of Science and assigns to matter the power and prerogative of Spirit, so that man becomes 123:9 the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.

Seeming and being

The verity of Mind shows conclusively how it is that 123:12 matter seems to be, but is not. Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves /things/ into /thoughts/, and replaces the objects of 123:15 material sense with spiritual ideas.

The term CHRISTIAN SCIENCE was introduced by the author to designate the scientific system of divine 123:18 healing.

The revelation consists of two parts:

1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mind- 123:21 healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master. 123:24 2. The proof, by present demonstration, that the so- called miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an 123:27 ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order and continuity of being.

Scientific basis

123:30 Christian Science differs from material sci- ence, but not on that account is it less scien- tific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-emi- 124:1 mently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science.

Physical science a blind belief

124:3 Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge, - a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his strength. When this human belief lacks organ- 124:6 izations to support it, its foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual basis, nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect 124:9 for cause and seeks to find life and intelligence in matter, thus limiting Life and holding fast to discord and death. In a word, human belief is a blind conclusion from material 124:12 reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which immortal Spirit silences forever.

Right interpretation

The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science 124:15 from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be under- stood; but when explained on the basis of physical sense and represented as subject to 124:18 growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma.

All force mental

Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of 124:21 Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the 124:24 proud wave, "Thus far and no farther."

Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and 124:27 creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this 124:30 Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.

Corporeal changes

The elements and functions of the physical body and 125:1 of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition 125:3 for organic and functional health in the human body may no longer be found indispensable to health. Moral conditions will be found always har- 125:6 monious and health-giving. Neither organic inaction nor overaction is beyond God's control; and man will be found normal and natural to changed mortal thought, 125:9 and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than he was in the prior states which human belief created and sanctioned.

125:12 As human thought changes from one stage to an- other of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, - from fear to hope and from faith to understand- 125:15 ing, - the visible manifestation will at last be man gov- erned by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God's government, man is self-governed. When subordinate 125:18 to the divine Spirit, man cannot be controlled by sin or death, thus proving our material theories about laws of health to be valueless.

The time and tide

125:21 The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agri- culturist will find that these changes cannot 125:24 affect his crops. "As a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed." The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great 125:27 deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, - he will look out from them upon the universe; and the 125:30 florist will find his flower before its seed.

Mortal nothingness

Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man 126:1 through its supposed organic action or supposed exist- ence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The 126:3 problem of nothingness, or "dust to dust," will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds 126:6 himself God's reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass.

A lack of originality

All Science is divine. Human thought never pro- 126:9 jected the least portion of true being. Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have 126:12 reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound.

Antagonistic questions

126:15 The point at issue between Christian Science on the one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall Science explain cause and effect as being 126:18 both natural and spiritual? Or shall all that is beyond the cognizance of the material senses be called supernatural, and be left to the mercy of speculative 126:21 hypotheses?

Biblical basis

I have set forth Christian Science and its application to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them. 126:24 I have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern 126:27 systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only au- 126:30 thority. I have had no other guide in "the straight and narrow way" of Truth.

Science and Christianity

If Christendom resists the author's application of the 127:1 word Science to Christianity, or questions her use of the word Science, she will not therefore lose faith in Chris- 127:3 tianity, nor will Christianity lose its hold upon her. If God, the All-in-all, be the creator of the spiritual universe, including man, then everything 127:6 entitled to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.

Scientific terms

127:9 The terms Divine Science, Spiritual Science, Christ Science or Christian Science, or Science alone, she em- ploys interchangeably, according to the re- 127:12 quirements of the context. These synony- mous terms stand for everything relating to God, the in- finite, supreme, eternal Mind. It may be said, however, 127:15 that the term Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity. Christian Science re- veals God, not as the author of sin, sickness, and death, 127:18 but as divine Principle, Supreme Being, Mind, exempt from all evil. It teaches that matter is the falsity, not the fact, of existence; that nerves, brain, stomach, lungs, 127:21 and so forth, have - as matter - no intelligence, life, nor sensation.

No physical science

There is no physical science, inasmuch as all truth 127:24 proceeds from the divine Mind. Therefore truth is not human, and is not a law of matter, for matter is not a lawgiver. Science is an emanation of 127:27 divine Mind, and is alone able to interpret God aright. It has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance, - the Comforter which leadeth into all truth. 127:30 Christian Science eschews what is called natural science, in so far as this is built on the false hypotheses that matter is its own lawgiver, that law is founded on material con- 128:1 ditions, and that these are final and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is natural and primitive. It is not 128:3 miraculous to itself.

Practical Science

The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, 128:6 inclusive of man. From this it follows that business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and 128:9 mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity. The human 128:12 mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowl- 128:15 edge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher 128:18 realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.

An odor becomes beneficent and agreeable only in pro- 128:21 portion to its escape into the surrounding atmosphere. So it is with our knowledge of Truth. If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man for waking him from 128:24 a cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist Truth, which banishes - yea, forever destroys with the higher testi- mony of Spirit - the so-called evidence of matter.

Mathematics and scientific logic

128:27 Science relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation. The addition of two sums in mathematics must 128:30 always bring the same result. So is it with logic. If both the major and the minor propo- sitions of a syllogism are correct, the conclusion, if properly 129:1 drawn, cannot be false. So in Christian Science there are no discords nor contradictions, because its logic is as 129:3 harmonious as the reasoning of an accurately stated syl- logism or of a properly computed sum in arithmetic. Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in 129:6 premise or conclusion.

Truth by inversion

If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can dis- cover it by reversing the material fable, be the 129:9 fable /pro/ or /con/, - be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them.

Antagonistic theories

Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the intelli- 129:12 gence of matter, - a belief which Science overthrows. In those days there will be "great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the 129:15 world;" and earth will echo the cry, "Art thou [Truth] come hither to torment us before the time?" Animal magnetism, hypnotism, spiritualism, theosophy, agnos- 129:18 ticism, pantheism, and infidelity are antagonistic to true being and fatal to its demonstration; and so are some other systems.

Ontology needed

129:21 We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up ontol- ogy, - "the science of real being." We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the out- 129:24 ward sense of things. Can we gather peaches from a pine-tree, or learn from discord the concord of being? Yet quite as rational are some of the leading 129:27 illusions along the path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.

Reluctant guests

129:30 The generous liver may object to the author's small estimate of the pleasures of the table. The sinner sees, in the system taught in this book, that the demands of 130:1 God must be met. The petty intellect is alarmed by con- stant appeals to Mind. The licentious disposition is dis- 130:3 couraged over its slight spiritual prospects. When all men are bidden to the feast, the ex- cuses come. One has a farm, another has merchandise, 130:6 and therefore they cannot accept.

Excuses for ignorance

It is vain to speak dishonestly of divine Science, which destroys all discord, when you can demonstrate 130:9 the actuality of Science. It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, - if Science, when understood and demonstrated, will 130:12 destroy all discord, - since you admit that God is om- nipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.

Children and adults

130:15 Christian Science, properly understood, would dis- abuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material 130:18 beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth. You cannot add to the contents of a vessel already full. Laboring long to shake the adult's 130:21 faith in matter and to inculcate a grain of faith in God, - an inkling of the ability of Spirit to make the body har- monious, - the author has often remembered our Master's 130:24 love for little children, and understood how truly such as they belong to the heavenly kingdom.

All evil unnatural

If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science 130:27 for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the su- premacy of good, ought we not, contrari- wise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims 130:30 of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it, - no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth should 131:1 not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem 131:3 so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in har- mony with God, the divine Principle of all being.

The error of carnality

131:6 When once destroyed by divine Science, the false evi- dence before the corporeal senses disappears. Hence the opposition of sensuous man to the Science of 131:9 Soul and the significance of the Scripture, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." The central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical power.

131:12 THEOLOGY

Churchly neglect

Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist? This Science has come 131:15 already, after the manner of God's appoint- ing, but the churches seem not ready to re- ceive it, according to the Scriptural saying, "He came 131:18 unto his own, and his own received him not." Jesus once said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise 131:21 and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." As afore- time, the spirit of the Christ, which taketh away the cere- 131:24 monies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the hearts of men are made ready for it.

John the Baptist, and the Messiah

The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and ex- 131:27 plained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural demonstrations of the divine power, demonstra- tions which were not understood. Jesus' works 131:30 established his claim to the Messiahship. In reply to John's inquiry, "Art thou he that should come," 132:1 Jesus returned an affirmative reply, recounting his works instead of referring to his doctrine, confident that this 132:3 exhibition of the divine power to heal would fully an- swer the question. Hence his reply: "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the 132:6 blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And 132:9 blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." In other words, he gave his benediction to any one who should not deny that such effects, coming from divine 132:12 Mind, prove the unity of God, - the divine principle which brings out all harmony.

Christ rejected

The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea and the 132:15 man who lived it out of their synagogues, and retained their materialistic beliefs about God. Jesus' system of healing received no aid nor approval 132:18 from other sanitary or religious systems, from doctrines of physics or of divinity; and it has not yet been gener- ally accepted. To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the 132:21 reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sin- ning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal 132:24 theory. Anticipating this rejection of idealism, of the true idea of God, - this salvation from all error, physi- cal and mental, - Jesus asked, "When the Son of man 132:27 cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"

John's misgivings

Did the doctrines of John the Baptist confer healing power upon him, or endow him with the truest concep- 132:30 tion of the Christ? This righteous preacher once pointed his disciples to Jesus as "the Lamb of God;" yet afterwards he seriously questioned 133:1 the signs of the Messianic appearing, and sent the inquiry to Jesus, "Art thou he that should come?"

Faith according to works

133:3 Was John's faith greater than that of the Samaritan woman, who said, "Is not this the Christ?" There was also a certain centurion of whose 133:6 faith Jesus himself declared, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."

In Egypt, it was Mind which saved the Israelites from 133:9 belief in the plagues. In the wilderness, streams flowed from the rock, and manna fell from the sky. The Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent, and straightway believed 133:12 that they were healed of the poisonous stings of vipers. In national prosperity, miracles attended the successes of the Hebrews; but when they departed from the true 133:15 idea, their demoralization began. Even in captivity among foreign nations, the divine Principle wrought wonders for the people of God in the fiery furnace and 133:18 in kings' palaces.

Judaism antipathetic

Judaism was the antithesis of Christianity, because Judaism engendered the limited form of a national or 133:21 tribal religion. It was a finite and material system, carried out in special theories concern- ing God, man, sanitary methods, and a religious cultus. 133:24 That he made "himself equal with God," was one of the Jewish accusations against him who planted Christianity on the foundation of Spirit, who taught as he was in- 133:27 spired by the Father and would recognize no life, intelli- gence, nor substance outside of God.

Priestly learning

The Jewish conception of God, as Yawah, Jehovah, 133:30 or only a mighty hero and king, has not quite given place to the true knowledge of God. Creeds and rituals have not cleansed their hands of 134:1 rabbinical lore. To-day the cry of bygone ages is re- peated, "Crucify him!" At every advancing step, truth 134:3 is still opposed with sword and spear.

Testimony of martyrs

The word /martyr/, from the Greek, means /witness/; but those who testified for Truth were so often persecuted 134:6 unto death, that at length the word /martyr/ was narrowed in its significance and so has come always to mean one who suffers for his convictions. 134:9 The new faith in the Christ, Truth, so roused the hatred of the opponents of Christianity, that the followers of Christ were burned, crucified, and otherwise persecuted; 134:12 and so it came about that human rights were hallowed by the gallows and the cross.

Absence of Christ-power

Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed 134:15 strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, how can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace? Denial of the possi- 134:18 bility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element, which gave it divine force and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.

Basis of miracles

134:21 The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, - not because this Science is supernatural or pre- 134:24 ternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good. Jesus said: "I knew that Thou hearest me al- 134:27 ways;" and he raised Lazarus from the dead, stilled the tempest, healed the sick, walked on the water. There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of 134:30 spiritual power over material resistance.

Lawful wonders

A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law. This fact at present seems more mysterious than 135:1 the miracle itself. The Psalmist sang: "What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan, 135:3 that thou wast driven back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills, like lambs? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the 135:6 Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob." The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law. 135:9 Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power.

Fear and sickness identical

The same power which heals sin heals also sickness. 135:12 This is "the beauty of holiness," that when Truth heals the sick it casts out evils, and when Truth casts out the evil called disease, it heals the 135:15 sick. When Christ cast out the devil of dumbness, "it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake." There is to-day danger of repeating 135:18 the offence of the Jews by limiting the Holy One of Israel and asking: "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" What cannot God do?

The unity of Science and Christianity 135:21 It has been said, and truly, that Christianity must be Science, and Science must be Christianity, else one or the other is false and useless; but neither is unim- 135:24 portant or untrue, and they are alike in demon- stration. This proves the one to be identical with the other. Christianity as Jesus taught it was not 135:27 a creed, nor a system of ceremonies, nor a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah; but it was the demonstration of divine Love casting out error and healing the sick, 135:30 not merely in the /name/ of Christ, or Truth, but in demon- stration of Truth, as must be the case in the cycles of divine light.

The Christ-mission

136:1 Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He taught 136:3 his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelli- 136:6 gence, action, nor life separate from God. Despite the persecution this brought upon him, he used his divine power to save men both bodily and spiritually.

Ancient spiritualism

136:9 The question then as now was, How did Jesus heal the sick? His answer to this question the world rejected. He appealed to his students: "Whom do 136:12 men say that I, the Son of man, am?" That is: Who or what is it that is thus identified with casting out evils and healing the sick? They replied, "Some 136:15 say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." These prophets were considered dead, and this reply may indicate that 136:18 some of the people believed that Jesus was a medium, controlled by the spirit of John or of Elias.

This ghostly fancy was repeated by Herod himself. 136:21 That a wicked king and debauched husband should have no high appreciation of divine Science and the great work of the Master, was not surprising; for how could such 136:24 a sinner comprehend what the disciples did not fully understand? But even Herod doubted if Jesus was con- trolled by the sainted preacher. Hence Herod's asser- 136:27 tion: "John have I beheaded: but who is this?" No wonder Herod desired to see the new Teacher.

Doubting disciples

The disciples apprehended their Master better than 136:30 did others; but they did not comprehend all that he said and did, or they would not have questioned him so often. Jesus patiently persisted in 137:1 teaching and demonstrating the truth of being. His stu- dents saw this power of Truth heal the sick, cast out evil, 137:3 raise the dead; but the ultimate of this wonderful work was not spiritually discerned, even by them, until after the crucifixion, when their immaculate Teacher stood before 137:6 them, the victor over sickness, sin, disease, death, and the grave.

Yearning to be understood, the Master repeated, 137:9 "But whom say /ye/ that I am?" This renewed inquiry meant: Who or what is it that is able to do the work, so mysterious to the popular mind? In his rejection of the 137:12 answer already given and his renewal of the question, it is plain that Jesus completely eschewed the narrow opinion implied in their citation of the common report 137:15 about him.

A divine response

With his usual impetuosity, Simon replied for his brethren, and his reply set forth a great fact: "Thou 137:18 art the Christ, the Son of the living God!" That is: The Messiah is what thou hast de- clared, - Christ, the spirit of God, of Truth, Life, and 137:21 Love, which heals mentally. This assertion elicited from Jesus the benediction, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 137:24 but my Father which is in heaven;" that is, Love hath shown thee the way of Life!

The true and living rock

Before this the impetuous disciple had been called 137:27 only by his common names, Simon Bar-jona, or son of Jona; but now the Master gave him a spir- itual name in these words: "And I say also 137:30 unto thee, That thou art Peter; and upon this rock [the meaning of the Greek word /petros/, or /stone/] I will build my church; and the gates of hell [/hades/, the /under/- 138:1 /world/, or the /grave/] shall not prevail against it." In other words, Jesus purposed founding his society, not 138:3 on the personal Peter as a mortal, but on the God- power which lay behind Peter's confession of the true Messiah.

Sublime summary

138:6 It was now evident to Peter that divine Life, Truth, and Love, and not a human personality, was the healer of the sick and a rock, a firm foundation in the realm 138:9 of harmony. On this spiritually scientific basis Jesus explained his cures, which appeared miraculous to outsiders. He showed that diseases were cast out neither 138:12 by corporeality, by /materia medica/, nor by hygiene, but by the divine Spirit, casting out the errors of mortal mind. The supremacy of Spirit was the foundation on which 138:15 Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.

New era in Jesus

Jesus established in the Christian era the precedent for 138:18 all Christianity, theology, and healing. Christians are under as direct orders now, as they were then, to be Christlike, to possess the Christ-spirit, to 138:21 follow the Christ-example, and to heal the sick as well as the sinning. It is easier for Christianity to cast out sick- ness than sin, for the sick are more willing to part with 138:24 pain than are sinners to give up the sinful, so-called pleas- ure of the senses. The Christian can prove this to-day as readily is it was proved centuries ago.

Healthful theology

138:27 Our Master said to every follower: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! . . . Heal the sick! . . . Love thy neighbor as 138:30 thyself!" It was this theology of Jesus which healed the sick and the sinning. It is his theology in this book and the spiritual meaning of this theology, which 139:1 heals the sick and causes the wicked to "forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." It was our Mas- 139:3 ter's theology which the impious sought to destroy.

Marvels and reformations

From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. 139:6 Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. The Christian era was ushered in with signs and 139:9 wonders. Reforms have commonly been attended with bloodshed and persecution, even when the end has been brightness and peace; but the present new, yet old, re- 139:12 form in religious faith will teach men patiently and wisely to stem the tide of sectarian bitterness, whenever it flows inward.

Science obscured

139:15 The decisions by vote of Church Councils as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; the man- ifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the 139:18 thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New, - these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole 139:21 into the divine record, with its own hue darkening to some extent the inspired pages. But mistakes could neither wholly obscure the divine Science of the Scriptures seen 139:24 from Genesis to Revelation, mar the demonstration of Jesus, nor annul the healing by the prophets, who foresaw that "the stone which the builders rejected" would be- 139:27 come "the head of the corner."

Opponents benefited

Atheism, pantheism, theosophy, and agnosticism are opposed to Christian Science, as they are to ordinary re- 139:30 ligion; but it does not follow that the profane or atheistic invalid cannot be healed by Chris- tian Science. The moral condition of such a man de- 140:1 mands the remedy of Truth more than it is needed in most cases; and Science is more than usually effectual in the 140:3 treatment of moral ailments.

God invisible to the senses

That God is a corporeal being, nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: "Thou canst not 140:6 see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live." Not materially but spiritually we know Him as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We 140:9 shall obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature and love Him understandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence 140:12 of our God. Religion will then be of the heart and not of the head. Mankind will no longer be tyrannical and pro- scriptive from lack of love, - straining out gnats and 140:15 swallowing camels.

The true worship

We worship spiritually, only as we cease to worship materially. Spiritual devoutness is the soul of Chris- 140:18 tianity. Worshipping through the medium of matter is paganism. Judaic and other rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. "The true 140:21 worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

Anthropomorphism

The Jewish tribal Jehovah was a man-projected God, 140:24 liable to wrath, repentance, and human changeableness. The Christian Science God is universal, eter- nal, divine love, which changeth not and caus- 140:27 eth no evil, disease, nor death. It is indeed mournfully true that the older Scripture is reversed. In the begin- ing God created man in His, God's, image; but mor- 140:30 tals would procreate man, and make God in their own human image. What is the god of a mortal, but a mortal magnified?

More than profession required

141:1 This indicates the distance between the theological and ritualistic religion of the ages and the truth preached by 141:3 Jesus. More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration. Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and 141:6 healing. Why? Because his precepts require the disci- ple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye, - that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs 141:9 and practices, to leave all for Christ.

No ecclesiastical monopoly

All revelation (such is the popular thought!) must come from the schools and along the line of scholarly and eccle- 141:12 siastical descent, as kings are crowned from a royal dynasty. In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect 141:15 followed the understanding of the divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit which governed the corporeal Jesus. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical 141:18 monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sover- eignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are made "kings and 141:21 priests unto God." The outsiders did not then, and do not now, understand this ruling of the Christ; there- fore they cannot demonstrate God's healing power. 141:24 Neither can this manifestation of Christ be com- prehended, until its divine Principle is scientifically understood.

A change demanded

141:27 The adoption of scientific religion and of divine heal- ing will ameliorate sin, sickness, and death. Let our pulpits do justice to Christian Science. Let 141:30 it have fair representation by the press. Give to it the place in our institutions of learning now occu- pied by scholastic theology and physiology, and it will 142:1 eradicate sickness and sin in less time than the old systems, devised for subduing them, have required for self-estab- 142:3 lishment and propagation.

Two claims omitted

Anciently the followers of Christ, or Truth, measured Christianity by its power over sickness, sin, and death; 142:6 but modern religions generally omit all but one of these powers, - the power over sin. We must seek the undivided garment, the whole Christ, as our 142:9 first proof of Christianity, for Christ, Truth, alone can furnish us with absolute evidence.

Selfishness and loss

If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly salary, and archi- 142:12 tectural skill, making dome and spire tremulous with beauty, turn the poor and the stranger from the gate, they at the same time shut the door on 142:15 progress. In vain do the manger and the cross tell their story to pride and fustian. Sensuality palsies the right hand, and causes the left to let go its grasp on the divine.

Temple cleansed

142:18 As in Jesus' time, so to-day, tyranny and pride need to be whipped out of the temple, and humility and divine Sci- ence to be welcomed in. The strong cords of 142:21 scientific demonstration, as twisted and wielded by Jesus, are still needed to purge the temples of their vain traffic in worldly worship and to make them meet 142:24 dwelling-places for the Most High.

MEDICINE

Question of precedence

Which was first, Mind or medicine? If Mind was 142:27 first and self-existent, then Mind, not matter, must have been the first medicine. God being All-in- all, He made medicine; but that medicine was 142:30 Mind. It could not have been matter, which departs from the nature and character of Mind, God. Truth 143:1 is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth de- stroys only what is untrue. Hence the fact that, to-day, 143:3 as yesterday, Christ casts out evils and heals the sick.

Methods rejected

It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, 143:6 nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his heal- ing. The sick are more deplorably lost than 143:9 the sinning, if the sick cannot rely on God for help and the sinning can. The divine Mind never called matter /medicine/, and matter required a material and human be- 143:12 lief before it could be considered as medicine.

Error not curative

Sometimes the human mind uses one error to medi- cine another. Driven to choose between two difficulties, 143:15 the human mind takes the lesser to relieve the greater. On this basis it saves from starva- tion by theft, and quiets pain with anodynes. You 143:18 admit that mind influences the body somewhat, but you conclude that the stomach, blood, nerves, bones, etc., hold the preponderance of power. Controlled by 143:21 this belief, you continue in the old routine. You lean on the inert and unintelligent, never discerning how this de- prives you of the available superiority of divine Mind. 143:24 The body is not controlled scientifically by a negative mind.

Impossible coalescence

Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power 143:27 except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the 143:30 glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name. Inferior and unspiritual methods of healing may try to make Mind and drugs coalesce, but the two will 144:1 not mingle scientifically. Why should we wish to make them do so, since no good can come of it? 144:3 If Mind is foremost and superior, let us rely upon Mind, which needs no cooperation from lower powers, even if these so-called powers are real.

144:6 Naught is the squire, when the king is nigh; Withdraws the star, when dawns the sun's brave light.

Soul and sense

The various mortal beliefs formulated in human philoso- 144:9 phy, physiology, hygiene, are mainly predicated of matter, and afford faint gleams of God, or Truth. The more material a belief, the more obstinately 144:12 tenacious its error; the stronger are the manifestations of the corporeal senses, the weaker the indications of Soul.

Will-power detrimental

Human will-power is not Science. Human will belongs 144:15 to the so-called material senses, and its use is to be con- demned. Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but 144:18 is sheer animal magnetism. Human will-power may in- fringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the realism of being. Truth, and 144:21 not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to disease, "Peace, be still."

Conservative antagonism

Because divine Science wars with so-called physical 144:24 science, even as Truth wars with error, the old schools still oppose it. Ignorance, pride, or prejudice closes the door to whatever is not stereotyped. 144:27 When the Science of being is universally understood, every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be the universal panacea.

Ancient healers

144:30 It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired healers understood the Science of Christian healing, or 145:1 whether they caught its sweet tones, as the natural musician catches the tones of harmony, without being 145:3 able to explain them. So divinely imbued were they with the spirit of Science, that the lack of the letter could not hinder their work; and that 145:6 letter, without the spirit, would have made void their practice.

The struggle and victory

The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not 145:9 between material methods, but between mortal minds and immortal Mind. The victory will be on the patient's side only as immortal Mind 145:12 through Christ, Truth, subdues the human belief in disease. It matters not what material method one may adopt, whether faith in drugs, trust in hygiene, or reliance 145:15 on some other minor curative.

Mystery of godliness

Scientific healing has this advantage over other meth- ods, - that in it Truth controls error. From this fact 145:18 arise its ethical as well as its physical ef- fects. Indeed, its ethical and physical effects are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery 145:21 in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness always presents to the ungodly, - the mystery always arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerr- 145:24 ing Mind.

Matter /versus/ matter

Other methods undertake to oppose error with error, and thus they increase the antagonism of one form of 145:27 matter towards other forms of matter or error, and the warfare between Spirit and the flesh goes on. By this antagonism mortal mind must con- 145:30 tinually weaken its own assumed power.

How healing was lost

The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master's first article of faith propounded 146:1 to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why 146:3 has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idol- 146:6 atry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and 146:9 harmony have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren of the vitality of spiritual power, by which material sense is made the servant of Science and religion becomes 146:12 Christlike.

Drugs and divinity

Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God - even the might of Mind - to heal the body. 146:15 Scholasticism clings for salvation to the per- son, instead of to the divine Principle, of the man Jesus; and his Science, the curative agent of God, 146:18 is silenced. Why? Because truth divests material drugs of their imaginary power, and clothes Spirit with suprem- acy. Science is the "stranger that is within thy gates," 146:21 remembered not, even when its elevating effects prac- tically prove its divine origin and efficacy.

Christian Science as old as God

Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible, 146:24 and the divine origin of Science is demonstrated through the holy influence of Truth in healing sick- ness and sin. This healing power of Truth 146:27 must have been far anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as "the Ancient of days." It lives through all Life, and extends throughout 146:30 all space.

Reduction to system

Divine metaphysics is now reduced to a system, to a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of 147:1 the age in which we live. This system enables the learner to demonstrate the divine Principle, 147:3 upon which Jesus' healing was based, and the sacred rules for its present application to the cure of disease.

147:6 Late in the nineteenth century I demonstrated the divine rules of Christian Science. They were submitted to the broadest practical test, and everywhere, when honestly ap- 147:9 plied under circumstances where demonstration was hu- manly possible, this Science showed that Truth had lost none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though cen- 147:12 turies had passed away since Jesus practised these rules on the hills of Judaea and in the valleys of Galilee.

Perusal and practice

Although this volume contains the complete Science of 147:15 Mind-healing, never believe that you can absorb the whole meaning of the Science by a simple /perusal/ of this book. The book needs to be /studied/, 147:18 and the demonstration of the rules of scientific healing will plant you firmly on the spiritual groundwork of Christian Science. This proof lifts you high above the 147:21 perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and en- ables you to grasp the spiritual facts of being hitherto unattained and seemingly dim.

A definite rule discovered

147:24 Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian heal- ing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for 147:27 demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in good- 147:30 ness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules.

Jesus' own practice

Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous or as difficult 148:1 to heal. When his students brought to him a case they had failed to heal, he said to them, "O faithless gen- 148:3 eration," implying that the requisite power to heal was in Mind. He prescribed no drugs, urged no obedience to material laws, but acted in direct 148:6 disobedience to them.

The man of anatomy and of theology

Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man as created by Spirit, - as God's man. The former ex- 148:9 plains the men of /men/, or the "children of men," as created corporeally instead of spir- itually and as emerging from the lowest, in- 148:12 stead of from the highest, conception of being. Both anatomy and theology define man as both physical and mental, and place mind at the mercy of matter for every 148:15 function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes up man at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the true tone, and accepts the discord. Anatomy and the- 148:18 ology reject the divine Principle which produces harmo- nious man, and deal - the one wholly, the other primarily - with matter, calling that /man/ which is not the counter- 148:21 part, but the counterfeit, of God's man. Then theology tries to explain how to make this man a Christian, - how from this basis of division and discord to produce the con- 148:24 cord and unity of Spirit and His likeness.

Physiology deficient

Physiology exalts matter, dethrones Mind, and claims to rule man by material law, instead of spiritual. When 148:27 physiology fails to give health or life by this process, it ignores the divine Spirit as unable or unwilling to render help in time of physical need. 148:30 When mortals sin, this ruling of the schools leaves them to the guidance of a theology which admits God to be the healer of sin but not of sickness, although our great 149:1 Master demonstrated that Truth could save from sickness as well as from sin.

Blunders and blunderers

149:3 Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is divine Science in every case. Is /materia medica/ a 149:6 science or a bundle of speculative human theories? The prescription which succeeds in one in- stance fails in another, and this is owing to the different 149:9 mental states of the patient. These states are not com- prehended and they are left without explanation except in Christian Science. The rule and its perfection of opera- 149:12 tion never vary in Science. If you fail to succeed in any case, it is because you have not demonstrated the life of Christ, Truth, more in your own life, - because you have 149:15 not obeyed the rule and proved the Principle of divine Science.

Old-school physician

A physician of the old school remarked with great 149:18 gravity: "We know that mind affects the body some- what, and advise our patients to be hopeful and cheerful and to take as little medicine as 149:21 possible; but mind can never cure organic difficulties." The logic is lame, and facts contradict it. The author has cured what is termed organic disease as readily as she 149:24 has cured purely functional disease, and with no power but the divine Mind.

Tests in our day

Since God, divine Mind, governs all, not partially but 149:27 supremely, predicting disease does not dignify therapeutics. Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body. We need to understand the 149:30 affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and demonstrate truth according to Christ. To-day there is hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not to 150:1 be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of Truth, as applied through this Christian 150:3 system of healing disease.

The main purpose

To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demon- strated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a 150:6 phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of "on earth peace, good-will toward men." This coming, as was promised 150:9 by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, 150:12 is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical heal- ing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demon- 150:15 strate its divine origin, - to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world.

Exploded doctrine

150:18 The science (so-called) of physics would have one be- lieve that both matter and mind are subject to disease, and that, too, in spite of the individual's pro- 150:21 test and contrary to the law of divine Mind. This human view infringes man's free moral agency; and it is as evidently erroneous to the author, and will be to 150:24 all others at some future day, as the practically rejected doctrine of the predestination of souls to damnation or salvation. The doctrine that man's harmony is gov- 150:27 erned by physical conditions all his earthly days, and that he is then thrust out of his own body by the operation of matter, - even the doctrine of the superiority of matter 150:30 over Mind, - is fading out.

Disease mental

The hosts of AEsculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind 151:1 and body are myths. To be sure, they sometimes treat the sick as if there was but one factor in the case; but 151:3 this one factor they represent to be body, not mind. Infinite Mind could not possibly create a remedy outside of itself, but erring, finite, human mind 151:6 has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its redemption and healing.

Intentions respected

Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of 151:9 the higher class of physicians. We know that if they un- derstood the Science of Mind-healing, and were in possession of the enlarged power it confers 151:12 to benefit the race physically and spiritually, they would rejoice with us. Even this one reform in medicine would ultimately deliver mankind from the awful and oppres- 151:15 sive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which multitudes would gladly escape.

Man governed by Mind

Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by 151:18 fright. Fear never stopped being and its action. The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God. Every function of the 151:21 real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no com- trol over God's man. The divine Mind that made man 151:24 maintain His own image and likeness. The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and 151:27 its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found har- monious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and 151:30 follow the leadings of truth.

Mortal mind dethroned

That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so- 152:1 called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but 152:3 it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored 152:6 to make this book the AEsculapius of mind as well as of body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth 152:9 has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.

All activity from thought

Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by mind in one instance and not in another. Such errors 152:12 beset every material theory, in which one statement contradicts another over and over again. It is related that Sir Humphry Davy once ap- 152:15 parently cured a case of paralysis simply by introducing a thermometer into the patient's mouth. This he did merely to ascertain the temperature of the patient's body; 152:18 but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended to heal him, and he recovered accordingly. Such a fact illustrates our theories.

The author's experiments in medicine

152:21 The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science. Every material dependence had 152:24 failed her in her search for truth; and she can now understand why, and can see the means by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source 152:27 for health and happiness.

Homoeopathic attenuations

Her experiments in homoeopathy had made her skep- tical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from 152:30 /Aconitum/ to /Zincum oxydatum/, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug 153:1 is frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a ves- tige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug 153:3 which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms of disease.

Only salt and water

The author has attenuated /Natrum muriaticum/ (com- 153:6 mon table-salt) until there was not a single saline property left. The salt had "lost his savour;" and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of 153:9 water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at in- tervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation 153:12 of homoeopathy and the most potent rises above matter into mind. This discovery leads to more light. From it may be learned that either human faith or the divine Mind is 153:15 the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.

Origin of pain

You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply 153:18 manifests, through inflammation and swell- ing, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high 153:21 attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its 153:24 own pain - that is, its own /belief/ in pain.

Source of contagion

We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but 153:27 mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental con- 153:30 ditions and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish 154:1 error in any form, and certainly we should not be error's advocate. 154:3 Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from as- sociation. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law ob- 154:6 tains credit through association, - calling up the fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifes- tation in the body.

Imaginary cholera

154:9 This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a bed where a cholera patient had died. Imme- 154:12 diately the symptoms of this disease appeared, and the man died. The fact was, that he had not caught the cholera by material contact, because no cholera patient 154:15 had been in that bed.

Children's ailments

If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened and says, "My child will be sick." 154:18 The law of mortal mind and her own fears gov- ern her child more than the child's mind gov- erns itself, and they produce the very results which might 154:21 have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief.

154:24 That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affec- tions need better guidance, who says to her child: "You look sick," "You look tired," "You need rest," or "You 154:27 need medicine."

Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning 154:30 more childishly than her child, "Mamma knows you are hurt." The better and more successful method for any mother to adopt is to say: "Oh, never mind! You're not 155:1 hurt, so don't think you are." Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play.

Drug-power mental

155:3 When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals; and according to this faith will the effect 155:6 be. Even when you take away the individual confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced the drug from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the 155:9 druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate 155:12 drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, un- less it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.

Belief in physics

155:15 The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This errone- ous general belief, which sustains medicine and 155:18 produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of 155:21 popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less 155:24 weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale. Homoeopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the 155:27 drug disappears.

Nature of drugs

Vegetarianism, homoeopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to 155:30 disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less in quantity you have of them the better? If drugs 156:1 possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and 156:3 what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?

Dropsy cured without drugs

A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 156:6 my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed 156:9 the fourth attenuation of /Argentum nitratum/ with occa- sional doses of a high attenuation of /Sulphuris/. She im- proved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the 156:12 ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their 156:15 prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was re- covering. It then occurred to me to give her un- 156:18 medicated pellets and watch the result. I did so, and she continued to gain. Finally she said that she would give up her medicine for one day, and risk the 156:21 effects. After trying this, she informed me that she could get along two days without globules; but on the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by 156:24 taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets, - and receiving occasional visits from me, - but employing no other means, and she was 156:27 cured.

A stately advance

Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homoeopathy. In metaphysics, 156:30 matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homoeopathy takes mental symptoms largely 157:1 into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and 157:3 destroying disease. It succeeds where homoeopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is em- 157:6 ployed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.

The modus of homoeopathy

Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on 157:9 Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that the divine Mind has all power. Homoeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of 157:12 thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this so- called mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power 157:15 of action is proportionately increased.

Drugging unchristian

If drugs are part of God's creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced/ good/, then 157:18 drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could cre- ate drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs 157:21 them for medical use, why did Jesus not employ them and recommend them for the treatment of disease? Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Erring 157:24 mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to possess.

Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so relieve the body; 157:27 but they leave both mind and body worse for this sub- mission. Christian Science impresses the entire corpore- ality, - namely, mind and body, - and brings out the 157:30 proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this spiritual and profound pathology.

Mythology and materia medica

158:1 It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to 158:3 heal the sick and designated Apollo as "the god of medicine." He was supposed to have dic- tated the first prescription, according to the 158:6 "History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine." It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease, "the god of pestilence." Hippocrates turned 158:9 from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for heal- ing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and 158:12 body. The future history of material medicine may correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was banished from heaven and endured great sufferings 158:15 upon earth.

Footsteps to intemperance

Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its effi- 158:18 cacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of this wil- derness world, - to victimize the race with intoxicating 158:21 prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appetite for strong drink, and men and women become loathsome sots.

Advancing degrees

158:24 Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter's higher stra- 158:27 tum, mortal mind. Homoeopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation 158:30 than the drug, is governing the pellet.

Effects of fear

A woman in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was etherized and died in consequence, although her physi- 159:1 cians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy, 159:3 her sister testified that the deceased protested against inhaling the ether and said it would kill her, but that she was compelled by her physicians to take 159:6 it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into sub- mission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that 159:9 death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of inhaling it.

Mental conditions to be heeded

Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of men- 159:12 tal conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so much mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had these 159:15 unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would have considered the woman's state of mind, and not have risked such treatment. They would either 159:18 have allayed her fear or would have performed the opera- tion without ether.

The sequel proved that this Lynn woman died from 159:21 effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease or the operation.

False source of knowledge

The medical schools would learn the state of man 159:24 from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permit- 159:27 ting to matter, - how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.

159:30 Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces dis- ease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to increase disease with his own mind, when he 160:1 should address himself to the work of destroying it through the power of the divine Mind.

160:3 The systems of physics act against metaphysics, and /vice versa/. When mortals forsake the material for the spiritual basis of action, drugs lose their healing force, 160:6 for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.

Obedient muscles

160:9 The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the direction of mortal mind, than are the organic action and secretion of the viscera. When this so-called 160:12 mind quits the body, the heart becomes as tor- pid as the hand.

Anatomy and mind

Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the man- 160:15 date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does anatomy say when the cords contract and be- come immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 160:18 speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent? Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance and not in another, and become cramped 160:21 despite the mental protest?

Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, - never capable of acting contrary to mental 160:24 direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid of their own preference, - be deformed or symmetrical, as they please or as disease directs, - they must be self- 160:27 directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mor- tal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from anatomy that muscle is not so governed?

Mind over matter

160:30 Is man a material fungus without Mind to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted muscle as much a result of law as the supple and 161:1 elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the lawgiver?

161:3 You say, "/I/ have burned my finger." This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mor- tal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 161:6 has created states of mind which have been able to nullify the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; 161:9 while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.

Restrictive regulations

In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed 161:12 tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If her sister States follow this example in har- mony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, 161:15 they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the Declaration, "Man is endowed by his Maker with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 161:18 pursuit of happiness."

The oppressive state statutes touching medicine re- mind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, 161:21 as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the guillotine: "Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Metaphysics challenges physics

161:24 The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case ac- cording to his physical diagnosis, would natu- 161:27 rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mor- tal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 161:30 this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his "adversary quickly," but upon different terms 162:1 than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 162:3 only with health and challenges disease.

Truth an alterative

Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 162:6 acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels hu- mors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 162:9 carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.

Practical success

162:12 Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 162:15 the conditions of matter and also without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working out the rules of Science in practice, the author has re- 162:18 stored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 162:21 elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and 162:24 healthy organizations have been established where disease was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires 162:27 only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.

Testimony of medical teachers

With due respect for the faculty, I kindly 162:30 quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He declared that "it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163:1 which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 163:3 people."

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard Uni- versity, declared himself "sick of learned quackery."

163:6 Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of England, said:

"I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be 163:12 less sickness and less mortality."

Dr. Mason Good, a learned Professor in London, said:

163:15 "The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 163:18 famine, all combined."

Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published 163:21 essay said:

"Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 163:24 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify 163:27 our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of med- 163:30 ical doctrines is indeed a task as impractible as to arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164:1 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer's Cyclops around his cave."

164:3 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, said:

"No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases 164:6 or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice."

164:9 It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medi- cal practitioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris- 164:12 tian Science. But all human systems based on material premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is 164:15 saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased thought-germs are exterminated.

If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality mis- called life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from sin, disease, and death. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 164:27 immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (St. Paul).

VII. PHYSIOLOGY

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? - JESUS.

He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. - PSALMS.

165:1 PHYSIOLOGY is one of the apples from "the tree of knowledge." Evil declared that eating this fruit 165:3 would open man's eyes and make him as a god. Instead of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man's God- given dominion over the earth.

Man not structural

165:6 To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to subjugate intelligence, to make mind mor- 165:9 tal, and to place this so-called mind at the mercy of material organization and non-intelligent matter.

165:12 Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since man-made material theories took the place of spiritual 165:15 truth.

Causes of sickness

You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then 165:18 you consult your brain in order to remember what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting 166:1 the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own, and the human mind is all that can produce pain.

166:3 As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels, acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made 166:6 on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the body is lost.

Delusions pagan and medical

The Mohammedan believes in a pilgrimage to Mecca 166:9 for the salvation of his soul. The popular doctor believes in his prescription, and the pharmacist believes in the power of his drugs to save a man's 166:12 life. The Mohammedan's belief is a religious delusion; the doctor's and pharmacist's is a medical mistake.

Health from reliance on spirituality

166:15 The erring human mind is inharmonious in itself. From it arises the inharmonious body. To ignore God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. 166:18 Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn 166:21 that He can do all things for us in sickness as in health.

Failing to recover health through adherence to physi- 166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns to God. The invalid's faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be with matter by most of the medical systems; but when 166:30 Mind at last asserts its mastery over sin, disease, and death, then is man found to be harmonious and immortal.

167:1 Should we implore a corporeal God to heal the sick out of His personal volition, or should we understand the 167:3 infinite divine Principle which heals? If we rise no higher than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not com- 167:6 prehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. Our pro- portionate admission of the claims of good or of evil de- 167:9 termines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our longevity, and our Christianity.

The two masters

We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Sci- 167:12 ence with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot successfully usurp the place and power of the divine source of all health and perfection. If 167:15 God made man both good and evil, man must remain thus. What can improve God's work? Again, an error in the premise must appear in the conclusion. To have 167:18 one God and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you must love God supremely.

Half-way success

The "flesh lusteth against the Spirit." The flesh and 167:21 Spirit can no more unite in action, than good can coin- cide with evil. It is not wise to take a halt- ing and half-way position or to expect to work 167:24 equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There, is but one way - namely, God and His idea - which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the 167:27 body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is im- possible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is abso- 167:30 lutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.

Substituting good words for a good life, fair seeming 168:1 for straightforward character, is a poor shift for the weak and worldly, who think the standard of Christian Science 168:3 too high for them.

Belief on the wrong side

If the scales are evenly adjusted, the removal of a single weight from either scale gives preponderance to the oppo- 168:6 site. Whatever influence you cast on the side of matter, you take away from Mind, which would otherwise outweigh all else. Your belief militates 168:9 against your health, when it ought to be enlisted on the side of health. When sick (according to belief) you rush after drugs, search out the material so-called laws of 168:12 health, and depend upon them to heal you, though you have already brought yourself into the slough of disease through just this false belief.

The divine authority

168:15 Because man-made systems insist that man becomes sick and useless, suffers and dies, all in consonance with the laws of God, are we to believe it? Are 168:18 we to believe an authority which denies God's spiritual command relating to perfection, - an authority which Jesus proved to be false? He did the will of the 168:21 Father. He healed sickness in defiance of what is called material law, but in accordance with God's law, the law of Mind.

Disease foreseen

168:24 I have discerned disease in the human mind, and rec- ognized the patient's fear of it, months before the so-called disease made its appearance in the body. Dis- 168:27 ease being a belief, a latent illusion of mortal mind, the sensation would not appear if the error of belief was met and destroyed by truth.

Changed mentality

168:30 Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter, - /chemicalization/. By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal 169:1 mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.

Scientific foresight

169:3 Whenever an aggravation of symptoms has occurred through mental chemicalization, I have seen the mental signs, assuring me that danger was over, before 169:6 the patient felt the change; and I have said to the patient, "You are healed," - sometimes to his dis- comfiture, when he was incredulous. But it always came 169:9 about as I had foretold.

I name these facts to show that disease has a mental, mortal origin, - that faith in rules of health or in drugs 169:12 begets and fosters disease by attracting the mind to the subject of sickness, by exciting fear of disease, and by dos- ing the body in order to avoid it. The faith reposed in 169:15 these things should find stronger supports and a higher home. If we understood the control of Mind over body, we should put no faith in material means.

Mind the only healer

169:18 Science not only reveals the origin of all disease as mental, but it also declares that all disease is cured by divine Mind. There can be no healing ex- 169:21 cept by this Mind, however much we trust a drug or any other means towards which human faith or endeavor is directed. It is mortal mind, not mat- 169:24 ter, which brings to the sick whatever good they may seem to receive from materiality. But the sick are never really healed except by means of the divine power. 169:27 Only the action of Truth, Life, and Love can give harmony.

Modes of matter

Whatever teaches man to have other laws and to 169:30 acknowledge other powers than the divine Mind, is anti-Christian. The good that a poisonous drug seems to do is evil, for it robs man of 170:1 reliance on God, omnipotent Mind, and according to be- lief, poisons the human system. Truth is not the basis of 170:3 theogony. Modes of matter form neither a moral nor a spiritual system. The discord which calls for material methods is the result of the exercise of faith in material 170:6 modes, - faith in matter instead of in Spirit.

Physiology unscientific

Did Jesus understand the economy of man less than Graham or Cutter? Christian ideas certainly present 170:9 what human theories exclude - the Principle of man's harmony. The text, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," not only con- 170:12 tradicts human systems, but points to the self-sustaining and eternal Truth.

The demands of Truth are spiritual, and reach the 170:15 body through Mind. The best interpreter of man's needs said: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink."

170:18 If there are material laws which prevent disease, what then causes it? Not divine law, for Jesus healed the sick and cast out error, always in opposition, never in 170:21 obedience, to physics.

Causation considered

Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to 170:24 human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem 170:27 of Truth's garment.

The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual, - but in either case dependent 170:30 upon his physical organization, - is the Pandora box, from which all ills have gone forth, especially despair. Matter, which takes divine power into its own hands and 171:1 claims to be a creator, is a fiction, in which paganism and lust are so sanctioned by society that mankind has caught 171:3 their moral contagion.

Paradise regained

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of ma- teriality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will 171:6 reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, 171:9 not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brain- ology to learn how much of a man he is.

A closed question

171:12 Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science. Jesus illustrated the divine Principle and the 171:15 power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death.

Matter /versus/ Spirit

Mistaking his origin and nature, man believes himself to 171:18 be combined matter and Spirit. He believes that Spirit is sifted through matter, carried on a nerve, ex- posed to ejection by the operation of matter. 171:21 The intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, - yea, the image of infinite Mind, - subject to non-intelligence!

No more sympathy exists between the flesh and Spirit 171:24 than between Belial and Christ.

The so-called laws of matter are nothing but false be- liefs that intelligence and life are present where Mind 171:27 is not. These false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease. The opposite truth, that intelligence and life are spiritual, never material, destroys sin, sickness, 171:30 and death.

The fundamental error lies in the supposition that man is a material outgrowth and that the cognizance of good 172:1 or evil, which he has through the bodily senses, con- stitutes his happiness or misery.

Godless Evolution

172:3 Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and 172:6 very much in the wrong.

Materialism grades the human species as rising from matter upward. How then is the material species main- 172:9 tained, if man passes through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being. 172:12 But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense of being disappears.

Degrees of development

172:15 If man was first a material being, he must have passed through all the forms of matter in order to become man. If the material body is man, he is a portion of 172:18 matter, or dust. On the contrary, man is the image and likeness of Spirit; and the belief that there is Soul in sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, /alias/ 172:21 mortal mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must "put off the old man."

Identity not lost

What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the 172:24 material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys 172:27 manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manli- ness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more no- 172:30 bility than the statuesque athlete, - teaching us by his very deprivations, that "a man's a man, for a' that."

When man is man

When we admit that matter (heart, blood, brain, acting 173:1 through the five physical senses) constitutes man, we fail to see how anatomy can distinguish between 173:3 humanity and the brute, or determine when man is really /man/ and has progressed farther than his animal progenitors.

Individualization

173:6 When the supposition, that Spirit is within what it creates and the potter is subject to the clay, is individualized, Truth is reduced to the level 173:9 of error, and the sensible is required to be made manifest through the insensible.

What is termed matter manifests nothing but a material 173:12 mentality. Neither the substance nor the manifestation of Spirit is obtainable through matter. Spirit is positive. Matter is Spirit's contrary, the absence of Spirit. For 173:15 positive Spirit to pass through a negative condition would be Spirit's destruction.

Man not structural

Anatomy declares man to be structural. Physiology 173:18 continues this explanation, measuring human strength by bones and sinews, and human life by material law. Man is spiritual, individual, and eter- 173:21 nal; material structure is mortal. Phrenology makes man knavish or honest according to the development of the cranium; but anatomy, physiology, 173:24 phrenology, do not define the image of God, the real im- mortal man.

Human reason and religion come slowly to the recogni- 173:27 tion of spiritual facts, and so continue to call upon matter to remove the error which the human mind alone has created.

173:30 The idols of civilization are far more fatal to health and longevity than are the idols of barbarism. The idols of civilization call into action less faith than Buddhism 174:1 in a supreme governing intelligence. The Esquimaux restore health by incantations as consciously as do civi- 174:3 lized practitioners by their more studied methods.

Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to 174:6 baths, diet, exercise, and air? Nothing save divine power is capable of doing so much for man as he can do for himself.

Rise of thought

174:9 The footsteps of thought, rising above material stand- points, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; but the angels of His presence - the spiritual 174:12 intuitions that tell us when "the night is far spent, the day is at hand" - are our guardians in the gloom. Whoever opens the way in Christian Science is 174:15 a pilgrim and stranger, marking out the path for gen- erations yet unborn.

The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount 174:18 are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth. Truth is revealed. It needs only to 174:21 be practised.

Medical errors

Mortal belief is all that enables a drug to cure mortal ailments. Anatomy admits that mind is somewhere in 174:24 man, though out of sight. Then, if an indi- vidual is sick, why treat the body alone and administer a dose of despair to the mind? Why declare 174:27 that the body is diseased, and picture this disease to the mind, rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel and holding it before the thought of both physician and pa- 174:30 tient? We should understand that the cause of disease obtains in the mortal human mind, and its cure comes from the immortal divine Mind. We should prevent the 175:1 images of disease from taking form in thought, and we should efface the outlines of disease already formulated in 175:3 the minds of mortals.

Novel Diseases

When there are fewer prescriptions, and less thought is given to sanitary subjects, there will be better 175:6 constitutions and less disease. In old times who ever heard of dyspepsia, cerebro-spinal meningitis, hay-fever, and rose-cold?

175:9 What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of God, can produce suffering! The joy of its presence, its beauty and fragrance, should uplift the 175:12 thought, and dissuade any sense of fear or fever. It is profane to fancy that the perfume of clover and the breath of new-mown hay can cause glandular inflammation, 175:15 sneezing, and nasal pangs.

No ancestral dyspepsia

If a random thought, calling itself dyspepsia, had tried to tyrannize over our forefathers, it would have 175:18 been routed by their independence and in- dustry. Then people had less time for self- ishness, coddling, and sickly after-dinner talk. The ex- 175:21 act amount of food the stomach could digest was not discussed according to Cutter nor referred to sanitary laws. A man's belief in those days was not so severe 175:24 upon the gastric juices. Beaumont's "Medical Experi- ments" did not govern the digestion.

Pulmonary misbeliefs

Damp atmosphere and freezing snow empurpled the 175:27 plump cheeks of our ancestors, but they never indulged in the refinement of inflamed bronchial tubes. They were as innocent as Adam, before he ate 175:30 the fruit of false knowledge, of the existence of tubercles and troches, lungs and lozenges.

Our modern Eves

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," says 176:1 the English poet, and there is truth in his sentiment. The action of mortal mind on the body was not so injurious 176:3 before inquisitive modern Eves took up the study of medical works and unmanly Adams attributed their own downfall and the fate of their off- 176:6 spring to the weakness of their wives.

The primitive custom of taking no thought about food left the stomach and bowels free to act in obedi- 176:9 ence to nature, and gave the gospel a chance to be seen in its glorious effects upon the body. A ghastly array of diseases was not paraded before the imagination. There 176:12 were fewer books on digestion and more "sermons in stones, and good in everything." When the mechanism of the human mind gives place to the divine Mind, self- 176:15 ishness and sin, disease and death, will lose their foothold.

Human fear of miasma would load with disease the 176:18 air of Eden, and weigh down mankind with superimposed and conjectural evils. Mortal mind is the worst foe of the body, while divine Mind is its best friend.

Diseases not to be classified

176:21 Should all cases of organic disease be treated by a regular practitioner, and the Christian Scientist try truth only in cases of hysteria, hypochon- 176:24 dria, and hallucination? One disease is no more real than another. All disease is the result of education, and disease can carry its ill-effects 176:27 no farther than mortal mind maps out the way. The human mind, not matter, is supposed to feel, suffer, en- joy. Hence decided types of acute disease are quite as 176:30 ready to yield to Truth as the less distinct type and chronic form of disease. Truth handles the most malignant con- tagion with perfect assurance.

One basis for all sickness

177:1 Human mind produces what is termed organic dis- ease as certainly as it produces hysteria, and it must re- 177:3 linquish all its errors, sicknesses, and sins. I have demonstrated this beyond all cavil. The evidence of divine Mind's healing power and abso- 177:6 lute control is to me as certain as the evidence of my own existence.

Mental and physical oneness

Mortal mind and body are one. Neither exists without 177:9 the other, and both must be destroyed by immortal Mind. Matter, or body, is but a false concept of mor- tal mind. This so-called mind builds its own 177:12 superstructure, of which the material body is the grosser portion; but from first to last, the body is a sensuous, human concept.

The effect of names

177:15 In the Scriptural allegory of the material creation, Adam or error, which represents the erroneous theory of life and intelligence in matter, had the 177:18 naming of all that was material. These names indicated matter's properties, qualities, and forms. But a lie, the opposite of Truth, cannot name the qualities and 177:21 effects of what is termed matter, and create the so-called laws of the flesh, nor can a lie hold the preponderance of power in any direction against God, Spirit and 177:24 Truth.

Poison defined mentally

If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient dies even though physician and 177:27 patient are expecting favorable results, does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally 177:30 taken.

In such cases a few persons believe the potion swal- lowed by the patient to be harmless, but the vast ma- 178:1 jority of mankind, though they know nothing of this par- ticular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, 178:3 the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poi- sonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind. Consequently, the result is controlled by the majority of 178:6 opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick-chamber.

Heredity is not a law. The remote cause or belief 178:9 of disease is not dangerous because of its priority and the connection of past mortal thoughts with present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are 178:12 mental.

Perhaps an adult has a deformity produced prior to his birth by the fright of his mother. When wrested from 178:15 human belief and based on Science or the divine Mind, to which all things are possible, that chronic case is not difficult to cure.

Animal magnetism destroyed

178:18 Mortal mind, acting from the basis of sensation in matter, is animal magnetism; but this so-called mind, from which comes all evil, contradicts itself, 178:21 and must finally yield to the eternal Truth, or the divine Mind, expressed in Science. In pro- portion to our understanding of Christian Science, we are 178:24 freed from the belief of heredity, of mind in matter or ani- mal magnetism; and we disarm sin of its imaginary power in proportion to our spiritual understanding of the status 178:27 of immortal being.

Ignorant of the methods and the basis of metaphysical healing, you may attempt to unite with it hypnotism, 178:30 spiritualism, electricity; but none of these methods can be mingled with metaphysical healing.

Whoever reaches the understanding of Christian Science 179:1 in its proper signification will perform the sudden cures of which it is capable; but this can be done only by 179:3 taking up the cross and following Christ in the daily life.

Absent patients

Science can heal the sick, who are absent from their 179:6 healers, as well as those present, since space is no ob- stacle to Mind. Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen; but the spiritual capacity to ap- 179:9 prehend thought and to heal by the Truth-power, is won only as man is found, not in self-righteousness, but re- flecting the divine nature.

Horses mistaught

179:12 Every medical method has its advocates. The prefer- ence of mortal mind for a certain method creates a demand for that method, and the body then seems to re- 179:15 quire such treatment. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket, whereas the wild animal, left to his 179:18 instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. The epizootic is a humanly evolved ailment, which a wild horse might never have.

Medical works objectionable

179:21 Treatises on anatomy, physiology, and health, sustained by what is termed material law, are the pro- moters of sickness and disease. It should not 179:24 be proverbial, that so long as you read medical works you will be sick.

The sedulous matron - studying her Jahr with homoe- 179:27 opathic pellet and powder in hand, ready to put you into a sweat, to move the bowels, or to produce sleep - is unwittingly sowing the seeds of reliance on matter, 179:30 and her household may erelong reap the effect of this mistake.

Descriptions of disease given by physicians and adver- 180:1 tisements of quackery are both prolific sources of sickness. As mortal mind is the husbandman of error, it should be 180:3 taught to do the body no harm and to uproot its false sowing.

The invalid's outlook

The patient sufferer tries to be satisfied when he sees 180:6 his would-be healers busy, and his faith in their efforts is somewhat helpful to them and to himself; but in Science one must understand the resusci- 180:9 tating law of Life. This is the seed within itself bearing fruit after its kind, spoken of in Genesis.

Physicians should not deport themselves as if Mind 180:12 were non-existent, nor take the ground that all causation is matter, instead of Mind. Ignorant that the human mind governs the body, its phenomenon, the invalid may 180:15 unwittingly add more fear to the mental reservoir already overflowing with that emotion.

Wrong and right way

Doctors should not implant disease in the thoughts of 180:18 their patients, as they so frequently do, by declaring dis- ease to be a fixed fact, even before they go to work to eradicate the disease through the ma- 180:21 terial faith which they inspire. Instead of furnishing thought with fear, they should try to correct this turbulent element of mortal mind by the influence of divine Love 180:24 which casteth out fear.

When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with 180:27 God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ 180:30 Jesus. The important decision

To reduce inflammation, dissolve a tumor, or cure or- ganic disease, I have found divine Truth more potent than 181:1 all lower remedies. And why not, since Mind, God, is the source and condition of all existence? Before decid- 181:3 ing that the body, matter, is disordered, one should ask, "Who art thou that repliest to Spirit? Can matter speak for itself, or does 181:6 it hold the issues of life?" Matter, which can neither suffer nor enjoy, has no partnership with pain and pleas- ure, but mortal belief has such a partnership.

Manipulation unscientific

181:9 When you manipulate patients, you trust in electricity and magnetism more than in Truth; and for that reason, you employ matter rather than 181:12 Mind. You weaken or destroy your power when you re- sort to any except spiritual means.

It is foolish to declare that you manipulate patients but 181:15 that you lay no stress on manipulation. If this be so, why manipulate? In reality you manipulate because you are ignorant of the baneful effects of magnetism, or are not 181:18 sufficiently spiritual to depend on Spirit. In either case you must improve your mental condition till you finally attain the understanding of Christian Science.

Not words but deeds

181:21 If you are too material to love the Science of Mind and are satisfied with good words instead of effects, if you adhere to error and are afraid to trust Truth, 181:24 the question then recurs, "Adam, where art thou?" It is unnecessary to resort to aught besides Mind in order to satisfy the sick that you are doing some- 181:27 thing for them, for if they are cured, they generally know it and are satisfied.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." 181:30 If you have more faith in drugs than in Truth, this faith will incline you to the side of matter and error. Any hypnotic power you may exercise will diminish your 182:1 ability to become a Scientist, and /vice versa./ The act of healing the sick through divine Mind alone, of casting 182:3 out error with Truth, shows your position as a Christian Scientist.

Physiology or Spirit

The demands of God appeal to thought only; but the 182:6 claims of mortality, and what are termed laws of nature, appertain to matter. Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate and capable of producing 182:9 the highest human good? We cannot obey both physi- ology and Spirit, for one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections. 182:12 It is impossible to work from two standpoints. If we attempt it, we shall presently "hold to the one, and despise the other."

182:15 The hypotheses of mortals are antagonistic to Science and cannot mix with it. This is clear to those, who heal the sick on the basis of Science.

No material law

182:18 Mind's government of the body must supersede the so- called laws of matter. Obedience to material law pre- vents full obedience to spiritual law, - the law 182:21 which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind. Mortals entreat the di- vine Mind to heal the sick, and forthwith shut out the aid 182:24 of Mind by using material means, thus working against themselves and their prayers and denying man's God- given ability to demonstrate Mind's sacred power. Pleas 182:27 for drugs and laws of health come from some sad incident, or else from ignorance of Christian Science and its tran- scendent power.

182:30 To admit that sickness is a condition over which God has no control, is to presuppose that omnipotent power is powerless on some occasions. The law of Christ, or 183:1 Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit; but the so- called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and 183:3 demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one God, one lawmaker. To suppose that God constitutes laws of inharmony is a mistake; dis- 183:6 cords have no support from nature or divine law, however much is said to the contrary.

Can the agriculturist, according to belief, produce a 183:9 crop without sowing the seed and awaiting its germina- tion according to the laws of nature? The answer is no, and yet the Scriptures inform us that sin, or error, first 183:12 caused the condemnation of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity. Truth never made error necessary, nor devised a law to 183:15 perpetuate error.

Laws of nature spiritual

The supposed laws which result in weariness and dis- ease are not His laws, for the legitimate and only possible 183:18 action of Truth is the production of harmony. Laws of nature are laws of Spirit; but mortals commonly recognize as law that which hides the power of 183:21 Spirit. Divine Mind rightly demands man's entire obe- dience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made for any lesser loyalty. Obedience to Truth gives man 183:24 power and strength. Submission to error superinduces loss of power.

Belief and understanding

Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods 183:27 with the actual spiritual law, - the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If Christian 183:30 Science dishonors human belief, it honors spir- itual understanding; and the one Mind only is entitled to honor.

184:1 The so-called laws of health are simply laws of mortal belief. The premises being erroneous, the conclusions 184:3 are wrong. Truth makes no laws to regulate sickness, sin, and death, for these are unknown to Truth and should not be recognized as reality.

184:6 Belief produces the results of belief, and the penal- ties it affixes last so long as the belief and are insepara- ble from it. The remedy consists in probing the trouble 184:9 to the bottom, in finding and casting out by denial the error of belief which produces a mortal disorder, never honoring erroneous belief with the title of law nor yield- 184:12 ing obedience to it. Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine 184:15 statutes.

Laws of human belief

Controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmoni- ous and eternal. Whatever is governed by a false belief 184:18 is discordant and mortal. We say man suffers from the effects of cold, heat, fatigue. This is human belief, not the truth of being, for matter cannot 184:21 suffer. Mortal mind alone suffers, - not because a law of matter has been transgressed, but because a law of this so-called mind has been disobeyed. I have demonstrated 184:24 this as a rule of divine Science by destroying the delusion of suffering from what is termed a fatally broken physical law.

184:27 A woman, whom I cured of consumption, always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east. I sat silently by her side a few moments. Her 184:30 breath came gently. The inspirations were deep and nat- ural. I then requested her to look at the weather-vane. She looked and saw that it pointed due east. The wind 185:1 had not changed, but her thought of it had and so her diffi- culty in breathing had gone. The wind had not produced 185:3 the difficulty. My metaphysical treatment changed the action of her belief on the lungs, and she never suffered again from east winds, but was restored to health.

A so-called mind-cure

185:6 No system of hygiene but Christian Science is purely mental. Before this book was published, other books were in circulation, which discussed "mental 185:9 medicine" and "mind-cure," operating through the power of the earth's magnetic currents to regulate life and health. Such theories and such systems of so-called 185:12 mind-cure, which have sprung up, are as material as the prevailing systems of medicine. They have their birth in mortal mind, which puts forth a human conception 185:15 in the name of Science to match the divine Science of im- mortal Mind, even as the necromancers of Egypt strove to emulate the wonders wrought by Moses. Such theories 185:18 have no relationship to Christian Science, which rests on the conception of God as the only Life, substance, and intelligence, and excludes the human mind as a spiritual 185:21 factor in the healing work.

Jesus and hypnotism

Jesus cast out evil and healed the sick, not only with- out drugs, but without hypnotism, which is 185:24 the reverse of ethical and pathological Truth- power.

Erroneous mental practice may seem for a time to bene- 185:27 fit the sick, but the recovery is not permanent. This is because erroneous methods act on and through the ma- terial stratum of the human mind, called brain, which is 185:30 but a mortal consolidation of material mentality and its suppositional activities.

False stimulus

A patient under the influence of mortal mind is healed 186:1 only by removing the influence on him of this mind, by emptying his thought of the false stimulus 186:3 and reaction of will-power and filling it with the divine energies of Truth.

Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the 186:6 understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil under whatever name or pretence they are em- 186:9 ployed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, cannot mingle.

Evil negative and self-destructive

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. 186:12 It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. 186:15 Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil.

Evil is self-assertive. It says: "I am a real entity, over- 186:18 mastering good." This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of good. Every attempt of evil 186:21 to destroy good is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily punishing the evil-doer. If we concede the same reality to discord as to harmony, discord has as lasting a claim upon 186:24 us as has harmony. If evil is as real as good, evil is also as immortal. If death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth. If pain is as real as the absence of pain, both must be im- 186:27 mortal; and if so, harmony cannot be the law of being.

Ignorant idolatry

Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be self-deceived. If mortal mind knew how to be better, it 186:30 would be better. Since it must believe in some- thing besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity. The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning, 187:1 having other gods and believing in more than the one Mind.

187:3 As mortals do not comprehend even mortal existence, how ignorant must they be of the all-knowing Mind and of His creations.

187:6 Here you may see how so-called material sense creates its own forms of thought, gives them material names, and then worships and fears them. With pagan blindness, 187:9 it attributes to some material god or medicine an ability beyond itself. The beliefs of the human mind rob and enslave it, and then impute this result to another illusive 187:12 personification, named Satan.

Action of mortal mind

The valves of the heart, opening and closing for the pas- sage of the blood, obey the mandate of mor- 187:15 tal mind as directly as does the hand, ad- mittedly moved by the will. Anatomy allows the mental cause of the latter action, but not of the former.

187:18 We say, "My hand hath done it." What is this /my/ but mortal mind, the cause of all materialistic action? All voluntary, as well as miscalled /involuntary/, action of the 187:21 mortal body is governed by this so-called mind, not by matter. There is no involuntary action. The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science is gov- 187:24 erned by this Mind. The human mind tries to classify action as voluntary and involuntary, and suffers from the attempt. Death and the body

187:27 If you take away this erring mind, the mortal material body loses all appearance of life or action, and this so- called mind then calls itself dead; but the hu- 187:30 man mind still holds in belief a body, through which it acts and which appears to the human mind to live, - a body like the one it had before death. This body 188:1 is put off only as the mortal, erring mind yields to God, immortal Mind, and man is found in His image.

Embryonic sinful thoughts

188:3 What is termed disease does not exist. It is neither mind nor matter. The belief of sin, which has grown terrible in strength and influence, is an uncon- 188:6 scious error in the beginning, - an embryonic thought without motive; but afterwards it governs the so-called man. Passion, depraved appetites, 188:9 dishonesty, envy, hatred, revenge ripen into action, only to pass from shame and woe to their final punishment.

Disease a dream

Mortal existence is a dream of pain and pleasure in 188:12 matter, a dream of sin, sickness, and death; and it is like the dream we have in sleep, in which every one recognizes his condition to be wholly a state of 188:15 mind. In both the waking, and the sleeping dream, the dreamer thinks that his body is material and the suffering is in that body.

188:18 The smile of the sleeper indicates the sensation pro- duced physically by the pleasure of a dream. In the same way pain and pleasure, sickness and care, are 188:21 traced upon mortals by unmistakable signs.

Sickness is a growth of error, springing from mortal ignorance or fear. Error rehearses error. What causes 188:24 disease cannot cure it. The soil of disease is mortal mind, and you have an abundant or scanty crop of disease, according to the seedlings of fear. Sin and the fear of 188:27 disease must be uprooted and cast out.

Sense yields to understanding

When darkness comes over the earth, the physical senses have no immediate evidence of a sun. 188:30 The human eye knows not where the orb of day is, nor if it exists. Astronomy gives the desired information regarding the sun. The human or 189:1 material senses yield to the authority of this science, and they are willing to leave with astronomy the explanation of 189:3 the sun's influence over the earth. If the eyes see no sun for a week, we still believe that there is solar light and heat. Science (in this instance named natural) raises 189:6 the human thought above the cruder theories of the human mind, and casts out a fear.

In like manner mortals should no more deny the power 189:9 of Christian Science to establish harmony and to explain the effect of mortal mind on the body, though the cause be unseen, than they should deny the existence of the sun- 189:12 light when the orb of day disappears, or doubt that the sun will reappear. The sins of others should not make good men suffer.

Ascending the scale

189:15 We call the body material; but it is as truly mortal mind, according to its degree, as is the material brain which is supposed to furnish the evidence 189:18 of all mortal thought or things. The human mortal mind, by an inevitable perversion, makes all things start from the lowest instead of from the highest 189:21 mortal thought. The reverse is the case with all the formations of the immortal divine Mind. They proceed from the divine source; and so, in tracing them, we con- 189:24 stantly ascend in infinite being.

Human reproduction

From mortal mind comes the reproduction of the species, - first the belief of inanimate, and then of ani- 189:27 mate matter. According to mortal thought, the development of embryonic mortal mind commences in the lower, basal portion of the brain, and 189:30 goes on in an ascending scale by evolution, keeping always in the direct line of matter, for matter is the subjective condition of mortal mind.

190:1 Next we have the formation of so-called embryonic mortal mind, afterwards mortal men or mortals, - all this 190:3 while matter is a belief, ignorant of itself, ignorant of what it is supposed to produce. The mortal says that an inani- mate unconscious seedling is producing mortals, both body 190:6 and mind; and yet neither a mortal mind nor the immortal Mind is found in brain or elsewhere in matter or in mortals.

Human stature

This embryonic and materialistic human belief called 190:9 mortal man in turn fills itself with thoughts of pain and pleasure, of life and death, and arranges itself into five so-called senses, which presently 190:12 measure mind by the size of a brain and the bulk of a body, called man.

Human frailty

Human birth, growth, maturity, and decay are as the 190:15 grass springing from the soil with beautiful green blades, afterwards to wither and return to its native nothingness. This mortal seeming is temporal; 190:18 it never merges into immortal being, but finally disap- pears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found to be the real man. 190:21 The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts, thus swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:

As for man, his days are as grass: 190:24 As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more.

190:27 When hope rose higher in the human heart, he sang:

As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. . . . . . 190:30 For with Thee is the fountain of life; In Thy light shall we see light.

191:1 The brain can give no idea of God's man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infi- 191:3 nite Mind.

As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God's likeness will 191:6 appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element.

The immortal birth

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a 191:9 misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to "where the young child was," 191:12 - even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. This the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, 191:15 chasing away the darkness of error.

Spiritual freedom

The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage. It should no longer 191:18 ask of the head, heart, or lungs: What are man's prospects for life? Mind is not helpless. Intelli- gence is not mute before non-intelligence.

191:21 By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not a spray buds within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell.

191:24 The Science of being reveals man and immortality as based on Spirit. Physical sense defines mortal man as based on matter, and from this premise infers the mor- 191:27 tality of the body.

No physical affinity

The illusive senses may fancy affinities with their op- posites; but in Christian Science, Truth never mingles 191:30 with error. Mind has no affinity with matter, and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills of the flesh. Mind, God, sends forth the aroma of Spirit, 192:1 the atmosphere of intelligence. The belief that a pulpy substance under the skull is mind is a mockery of intelli- 192:3 gence, a mimicry of Mind.

We are Christian Scientists, only as we quit our reliance upon that which is false and grasp the true. We are not 192:6 Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ. Human opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, 192:9 and from the mortal instead of from the immortal. Spirit is not separate from God. Spirit /is/ God.

Human power a blind force

Erring power is a material belief, a blind miscalled force, 192:12 the offspring of will and not of wisdom, of the mortal mind and not of the immortal. It is the headlong cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest's 192:15 breath. It is lightning and hurricane, all that is selfish, wicked, dishonest, and impure.

The one real power

Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds 192:18 the "wind in His fists;" and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physi- 192:21 cal senses must give up their false testimony. Your in- fluence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you 192:24 the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.

192:27 We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by follow- ing the example of our Master in the understanding of divine metaphysics. Christianity is the basis of true heal- 192:30 ing. Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.

Mind cures hip-disease

I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been 193:1 confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. On enter- 193:3 ing the house I met his physician, who said that the patient was dying. The physician had just probed the ulcer on the hip, and said the bone was carious 193:6 for several inches. He even showed me the probe, which had on it the evidence of this condition of the bone. The doctor went out. Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and 193:9 sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids 193:12 closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and said: "I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone." 193:15 It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon when this took place.

I told him to rise, dress himself, and take supper with 193:18 his family. He did so. The next day I saw him in the yard. Since then I have not seen him, but am informed that he went to work in two weeks. The discharge from 193:21 the sore stopped, and the sore was healed. The diseased condition had continued there ever since the injury was received in boyhood. 193:24 Since his recovery I have been informed that his physi- cian claims to have cured him, and that his mother has been threatened with incarceration in an insane asylum 193:27 for saying: "It was none other than God and that woman who healed him." I cannot attest the truth of that report, but what I saw and did for that man, and what 193:30 his physician said of the case, occurred just as I have narrated.

It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God 194:1 and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will. Review- 194:3 ing this brief experience, I cannot fail to discern the coincidence of the spiritual idea of man with the divine Mind.

Change of belief

194:6 A change in human belief changes all the physical symp- toms, and determines a case for better or for worse. When one's false belief is corrected 194:9 Truth sends a report of health over the body.

Destruction of the auditory nerve and paralysis of the optic nerve are not necessary to ensure deafness and blind- 194:12 ness; for if mortal mind says, "I am deaf and blind," it will be so without an injured nerve. Every theory op- posed to this fact (as I learned in metaphysics) would 194:15 presuppose man, who is immortal in spiritual under- standing, a mortal in material belief.

Power of habit

The authentic history of Kaspar Hauser is a useful hint 194:18 as to the frailty and inadequacy of mortal mind. It proves beyond a doubt that education consti- tutes this so-called mind, and that, in turn, 194:21 mortal mind manifests itself in the body by the false sense it imparts. Incarcerated in a dungeon, where neither sight nor sound could reach him, at the age of 194:24 seventeen Kaspar was still a mental infant, crying and chattering with no more intelligence than a babe, and realizing Tennyson's description:

194:27 An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.

194:30 His case proves material sense to be but a belief formed by education alone. The light which affords us joy gave 195:1 him a belief of intense pain. His eyes were inflamed by the light. After the babbling boy had been taught to 195:3 speak a few words, he asked to be taken back to his dun- geon, and said that he should never be happy elsewhere. Outside of dismal darkness and cold silence he found no 195:6 peace. Every sound convulsed him with anguish. All that he ate, except his black crust, produced violent retchings. All that gives pleasure to our educated senses 195:9 gave him pain through those very senses, trained in an opposite direction.

Useful knowledge

The point for each one to decide is, whether it is mortal 195:12 mind or immortal Mind that is causative. We should forsake the basis of matter for meta- physical Science and its divine Principle.

195:15 Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through as- tronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, 195:18 thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.

Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observa- tion, invention, study, and original thought are expansive 195:21 and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of it- self, out of all that is mortal.

It is the tangled barbarisms of learning which we 195:24 deplore, - the mere dogma, the speculative theory, the nauseous fiction. Novels, remarkable only for their exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens 195:27 of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes and sentiments. Literary commercialism is lowering the intellectual standard to accommodate the purse and to 195:30 meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of for improvement. Incorrect views lower the standard of truth.

196:1 If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom. It is but a blind force. Man has "sought out many inven- 196:3 tions," but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge. The power of mortal mind over its own body is little understood.

Sin destroyed through suffering

196:6 Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate this dream. Sin 196:9 alone brings death, for sin is the only element of destruction.

"Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body 196:12 in hell," said Jesus. A careful study of this text allows that here the word soul means a false sense or material consciousness. The command was a warning to beware, 196:15 not of Rome, Satan, nor of God, but of sin. Sickness, sin, and death are not concomitants of Life or Truth. No law supports them. They have no relation to God 196:18 wherewith to establish their power. Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven.

Dangerous shoals avoided

Such books as will rule disease out of mortal mind, - 196:21 and so efface the images and thoughts of dis- ease, instead of impressing them with forcible descriptions and medical details, - will help 196:24 to abate sickness and to destroy it.

Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single /post mortem/ examination, - not from infection nor from 196:27 contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the 196:30 body.

Pangs caused by the press

The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giv- 197:1 ing names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A 197:3 new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it. A minutely described dis- 197:6 ease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not ex- ceed the original cost. God said of the tree of knowledge, 197:9 which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Higher standard for mortals

The less that is said of physical structure and laws, and 197:12 the more that is thought and said about moral and spiritual law, the higher will be the stand- ard of living and the farther mortals will be re- 197:15 moved from imbecility or disease.

We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. It was the ignorance of our forefathers in the departments 197:18 of knowledge now broadcast in the earth, that made them hardier than our trained physiologists, more honest than our sleek politicians.

Diet and dyspepsia

197:21 We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate helped to make them healthy, but that is a mistake. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this 197:24 period. With rules of health in the head and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would still be dyspeptics. Many of the effeminate constitutions 197:27 of our time will never grow robust until individual opin- ions improve and immortal belief loses some portion of its error.

Harm done by physicians

197:30 The doctor's mind reaches that of his patient. The doctor should suppress his fear of disease, else his belief in its reality and fatality will harm his patients even more 198:1 than his calomel and morphine, for the higher stratum of mortal mind has in belief more power to harm man than 198:3 the substratum, matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict as a criminal hears his death- sentence. The patient may seem calm under it, but he is 198:6 not. His fortitude may sustain him, but his fear, which has already developed the disease that is gaining the mastery, is increased by the physician's words.

Disease depicted

198:9 The materialistic doctor, though humane, is an art- ist who outlines his thought relative to disease, and then fills in his delineations with sketches from text- 198:12 books. It is better to prevent disease from forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, - perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an- other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture of healthy and harmonious formations.

A patient's belief is more or less moulded and formed 198:24 by his doctor's belief in the case, even though the doctor says nothing to support his theory. His thoughts and his patient's commingle, and the stronger thoughts rule the 198:27 weaker. Hence the importance that doctors be Christian Scientists.

Mind over matter

Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are 198:30 strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise has produced this result or that a less used arm must be weak. If matter were the cause 199:1 of action, and if muscles, without volition of mortal mind, could lift the hammer and strike the anvil, it 199:3 might be thought true that hammering would enlarge the muscles. The trip-hammer is not increased in size by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as 199:6 wood and iron? Because nobody believes that mind is producing such a result on the hammer.

Muscles are not self-acting. If mind does not move 199:9 them, they are motionless. Hence the great fact that Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate, - by reason of its demand for and supply of 199:12 power. Not because of muscular exercise, but by rea- son of the blacksmith's faith in exercise, his arm becomes stronger.

Latent fear subdued

199:15 Mortals develop their own bodies or make them sick, according as they influence them through mortal mind. To know whether this development is produced 199:18 consciously or unconsciously, is of less impor- tance than a knowledge of the fact. The feats of the gym- nast prove that latent mental fears are subdued by him. 199:21 The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble 199:24 faith.

Had Blondin believed it impossible to walk the rope over Niagara's abyss of waters, he could never have 199:27 done it. His belief that he could do it gave his thought- forces, called muscles, their flexibility and power which the unscientific might attribute to a lubricating oil. His 199:30 fear must have disappeared before his power of putting resolve into action could appear.

Homer and Moses

When Homer sang of the Grecian gods, Olympus was 200:1 dark, but through his verse the gods became alive in a nation's belief. Pagan worship began with muscularity, 200:3 but the law of Sinai lifted thought into the song of David. Moses advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and il- 200:6 lustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind.

A mortal not man

Whoever is incompetent to explain Soul would be wise 200:9 not to undertake the explanation of body. Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for life is God, and man is the idea 200:12 of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust. The Psalmist said: "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy 200:15 hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet."

The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; 200:18 for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike.

The suppositional antipode of divine infinite Spirit 200:21 is the so-called human soul or spirit, in other words the five senses, - the flesh that warreth against Spirit. These so called material senses must yield to the infinite 200:24 Spirit, named God.

St. Paul said: "For I determined not to know any- thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 200:27 (I Cor. ii. 2.) Christian Science says: I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him glorified.