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Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
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110:1presence, omniscience, Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, contradict 3
God’s
allness
learned
forever the belief that matter can be actual.
These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God’s creation, 6in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.
Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful 9unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, man’s perfectibility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on 12earth.
In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were 15
Scriptural
foundations
illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science was demonstrated.
No human pen nor tongue 18taught me the Science contained in this book, Science and Health; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criti21cism 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 dis24cerned and demonstrated.
Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science to heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost 27
The
demonstration
lost and found
sight of, and must again be spiritually discerned, taught, and demonstrated according to Christ’s command, with signs following.
30Its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe on Christ and spiritually understand Truth.
No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of 111:1agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Chris3
Mystical
antagonists
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.
6Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than
Optical
illustration
of Science
is the science of numbers, though departing 9from 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 12is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utilization of the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted 15and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the explanation of optics rejects the incidental or inverted image and shows what this inverted image is meant to 18represent.
A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, 21
Pertinent
proposal
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 24many incidents which show that Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality.
After a lengthy examination of my discovery and its 27demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evi
Confirmatory
tests
dent to me, that Mind governs the body, not partially but wholly.
I submitted my 30metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical tests. Since then this system has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever scien112:1tifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.
3Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who de6
One school
of Truth
part from this method forfeit their claims to belong to its school, and they become adherents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some 9other school.
By this is meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of 12divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not 15scientifically Christian.
From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude 18
Unchanging
Principle
come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;for thus are 21the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea characterized in the epistle to the Hebrews.
Any theory of Christian Science, which departs from 24what has already been stated and proved to be true, af
On sandy
foundations
fords no foundation upon which to establish a genuine school of this Science.
Also, if any 27so-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 30inculcates a breach of that divine commandment in the Hebrew Decalogue, Thou shalt not steal.
God is the Principle of divine metaphysics. As there 113:1is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demon3
Principle and
practice
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, 6the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, pulseless, cold, inanimate.
9The fundamental propositions of divine metaphysics are summarized in the four following, to me, self-evident
Reversible
propositions
propositions.
Even if reversed, these proposi12tions 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 15stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.
1.God is All-in-all.
2.God is good. Good is Mind.
183.God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.
4.Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipo21tent God, Life.
Which of the denials in proposition four is true? Both are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture, 24I find that God is true, but every [mortal] man a liar.
The divine metaphysics of Christian Science, like the 27method in mathematics, proves the rule by inversion.
Metaphysical
inversions
For example: There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no 30mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in matter; no matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter in good, and no good in matter.
114:1Usage classes both evil and good together as mind; therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sin3
Definition of
mortal mind
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 6Truth 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 9divine.
In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts.
12Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an improper use of the word mind. As Mind is immortal,
Imperfect
terminology
the phrase mortal mind implies something un15true 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 18a 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 21wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of the letter.
Christian Science explains all cause and effect as men24tal, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and
Causation
mental
body.
It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities 27of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed mat30ter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.
Apart from the usual opposition to everything new, 115:1the one great obstacle to the reception of that spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind-science 3
Philological
inadequacy
comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for metaphysical statements, and the consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make 6them comprehensible to any reader, who has not personally demonstrated Christian Science as brought forth in my discovery.
Job says: The ear trieth words, as the 9mouth tasteth meat. The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue.
12
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF IMMORTAL MIND
Divine
synonyms
God: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.
15
Divine
image
Man: God’s spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal.
Divine
reflection
Idea: An image in Mind; the immediate 18object of understanding. Webster.
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND
First Degree: Depravity.
21Physical. Evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, de
Unreality
ceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, 24death.
Second Degree: Evil beliefs disappearing.
Transitional
qualities
Moral. Humanity, honesty, affection, com27passion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
116:1Third Degree: Understanding.
Spiritual. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, 3
Reality
spiritual power, love, health, holiness.
In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as God’s image appears. Science so reverses the evidence 6
Spiritual
universe
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 9and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and must of necessity be, all-inclusive.
A correct view of Christian Science and of its adapta12tion to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen.
Aim of
Science
Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of 15Mind 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 18that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the thought that 21
Divine
personality
God is not corporeal, but incorporeal,that is, bodiless.
Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.
24As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity 27and 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 30not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.
117:1The term individuality is also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one of many, 3as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is One,not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.
6God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physi
Spiritual
language
cal nature and significance to the Supreme 9Being 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 spir12itual meaning of which is attained through signs following.
Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure lan15guage of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by simili
The miracles
of Jesus
tudes and parables.
As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demon18strating 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 21(marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh.
24Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates
Opacity of
the senses
solely to human reason; and because of opacity to the true light, human reason dimly re27flects and feebly transmits Jesus’ works and words.
Truth is a revelation.
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the 30
Leaven
of Truth
Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines.
His parable of the leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 118:1of meal, till the whole was leavened,impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ 3and its spiritual interpretation, an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
6Did 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 visi9ble world?
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally 12glorified in man’s spiritual freedom.
In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spirit15
The divine
and human
contrasted
ual laws emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace.
The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by 18a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically presented as three measures of meal, that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust 21is 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 24the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
The definitions of material law, as given by natural 27science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against
Certain
contradictions
itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual.
Therefore they con30tradict 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.
119:1When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we 3
Unescapable
dilemma
cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, we disown the Almighty, for such theories lead to one of two things.
They 6either 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 con9sider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the creator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of 12matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpet15ual misrule in the form and under the name of natural law.
In one sense God is identical with nature, but this na18ture is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The law
God and
nature
giver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal 21of omnipresent Love.
God is natural good, and is represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature 24of Spirit, God.
In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it contradicts the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth 27
The sun
and Soul
is in motion and the sun at rest.
As astronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science re30verses 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

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