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Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
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120:1seems otherwise to finite sense. But we shall never understand this while we admit that soul is in body or mind in 3matter, 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 6image.
Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the funda9
Reversal of
testimony
mental facts of being.
Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter 12can 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.
15Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the sub
Health and
the senses
ject of health.
The Science of Mind-healing 18shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testi21mony 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 24false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.
Any conclusion pro or con, deduced from supposed sensation in matter or from matter’s supposed consciousness 27of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate and so leads to disease.
30When Columbus gave freer breath to the
Historic
illustrations
globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and star121:1vation stared him in the face; but sterner still would have been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the favor3ite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.
Copernicus mapped out the stellar system, and before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields 6were incorrectly explored.
The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher 9
Perennial
beauty
revelation than the horoscope was to them displayed upon the empyrean, earth and heaven were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God’s 12perennial 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 15by Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate star a weary searcher for a viewless home.
The earth’s diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical 18eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead
Astronomic
unfoldings
of the earth from west to east.
Until rebuked by clearer views of the everlasting facts, this 21false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment and induced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often to be erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple 24rule 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 27turning daily on its own axis.
As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflec30tion of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to divine Science as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.
122:1The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, 3
Opposing
testimony
assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false 6witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, the actual reign of harmony on earth.
The material senses’ reversal of the Science of Soul was practically exposed nine9teen 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 12as 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.
15The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye’s retina, sky and tree-tops
Testimony of
the senses
apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet 18and 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 21clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall for himself.
24To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein
Spiritual
sense of life
takes away life; but to spiritual sense and in Science, Life goes on unchanged and 27being is eternal.
Temporal life is a false sense of existence.
Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul 30and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system. They insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tributary to matter. Astronomical science has destroyed the 123:1false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as 3
Ptolemaic
and psychical
error
to our terrestrial bodies.
The true idea and Principle of man will then appear. The Ptolemaic blunder could not affect the harmony of 6being 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 9the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.
The verity of Mind shows conclusively how it is that 12
Seeming
and being
matter seems to be, but is not.
Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of 15material sense with spiritual ideas.
The term Christian Science was introduced by the author to designate the scientific system of divine 18healing.
The revelation consists of two parts:
1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mind-21healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master.
242. 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 27ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order and continuity of being.
Scientific
basis
30Christian Science differs from material science, but not on that account is it less scientific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-emi124:1nently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science.
3Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge, a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his
Physical
science a
blind belief
strength.
When this human belief lacks organ6izations to support it, its foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual basis, nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect 9for 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 12reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which immortal Spirit silences forever.
The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science 15from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be under
Right
interpretation
stood; but when explained on the basis of physical sense and represented as subject to 18growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma.
Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of 21Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support
All force
mental
the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the 24proud wave, Thus far and no farther.
Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and 27creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this 30Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
The elements and functions of the physical body and 125:1of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition 3
Corporeal
changes
for organic and functional health in the human body may no longer be found indispensable to health.
Moral conditions will be found always har6monious 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, 9and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than he was in the prior states which human belief created and sanctioned.
12As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, from fear to hope and from faith to understand15ing, the visible manifestation will at last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God’s government, man is self-governed. When subordinate 18to the divine Spirit, man cannot be controlled by sin or death, thus proving our material theories about laws of health to be valueless.
21The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agri
The time
and tide
culturist will find that these changes cannot 24affect 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 27deep, 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 30florist will find his flower before its seed.
Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man 126:1through its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The 3
Mortal
nothingness
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 6himself God’s reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass.
All Science is divine. Human thought never pro9jected the least portion of true being. Human belief
A lack of
originality
has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have 12reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound.
15The point at issue between Christian Science on the one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall
Antagonistic
questions
Science explain cause and effect as being 18both 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 21hypotheses?
I have set forth Christian Science and its application to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them. 24
Biblical
basis
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 27systems 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 au30thority. I have had no other guide in the straight and narrow wayof Truth.
If Christendom resists the author’s application of the 127:1word Science to Christianity, or questions her use of the word Science, she will not therefore lose faith in Chris3
Science and
Christianity
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 6entitled 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.
9The terms Divine Science, Spiritual Science, Christ Science or Christian Science, or Science alone, she em
Scientific
terms
ploys interchangeably, according to the re12quirements of the context.
These synonymous terms stand for everything relating to God, the infinite, supreme, eternal Mind. It may be said, however, 15that the term Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity. Christian Science reveals God, not as the author of sin, sickness, and death, 18but 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, 21and so forth, have as matter no intelligence, life, nor sensation.
There is no physical science, inasmuch as all truth 24proceeds from the divine Mind. Therefore truth is not
No physical
science
human, and is not a law of matter, for matter is not a lawgiver.
Science is an emanation of 27divine 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.
30Christian 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 con128:1ditions, and that these are final and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is natural and primitive. It is not 3miraculous to itself.
The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, 6
Practical
Science
inclusive of man.
From this it follows that business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and 9mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity. The human 12mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowl15edge 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 18realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.
An odor becomes beneficent and agreeable only in pro21portion 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 24a cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist Truth, which banishes yea, forever destroys with the higher testimony of Spirit the so-called evidence of matter.
27Science relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation.
Mathematics
and scientific
logic
The addition of two sums in mathematics must 30always bring the same result. So is it with logic. If both the major and the minor propositions of a syllogism are correct, the conclusion, if properly 129:1drawn, cannot be false. So in Christian Science there are no discords nor contradictions, because its logic is as 3harmonious as the reasoning of an accurately stated syllogism or of a properly computed sum in arithmetic. Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in 6premise or conclusion.
If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can dis
Truth by
inversion
cover it by reversing the material fable, be the 9fable pro or con, be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them.
Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the intelli12gence of matter, a belief which Science overthrows.
Antagonistic
theories
In those days there will be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the 15world;and earth will echo the cry, Art thou [Truth] come hither to torment us before the time? Animal magnetism, hypnotism, spiritualism, theosophy, agnos18ticism, pantheism, and infidelity are antagonistic to true being and fatal to its demonstration; and so are some other systems.
21We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up ontology, the science of real being. We must look deep
Ontology
needed
into realism instead of accepting only the out24ward 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 27illusions along the path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.
30The 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

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