Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 28

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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s: 190:24 As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

For the wind pa.s.seth 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d, man in G.o.d'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. Thus 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 gra.s.s 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, G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. Spirit _is_ G.o.d.

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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.ses 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 h.e.l.l," 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 G.o.d, but of sin. Sickness, sin, and death are not concomitants of Life or Truth.

No law supports them. They have no relation to G.o.d 196:18 wherewith to establish their power. Sin makes its own h.e.l.l, and goodness its own heaven.