Search:

Science and Health

107

Chapter 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.

107:1In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or Christian Science discovereddivine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and 3named my discovery Christian Science. God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the ab6solute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.

    This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, “God with us,” — the sovereign ever-pres9Mission of Christian Scienceence, delivering the children of men from every ill “that flesh is heir to.” Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are 12inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God.

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

108

108:1    Whence came to me this heavenly conviction, — a conviction antagonistic to the testimony of the physical senses? 3According 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 6the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, “the 9price of learning love,” establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer.

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

    When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, 21Light shining in darknessI 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-24present; 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 27evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.

30New lines of thought    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, 109 109:1and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in 3Mind-science.

    Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind 6Scientific evidence 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 9thus proved absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion can be reached.

    For three years after my discovery, I sought the solu12tion of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the ScripSolitary researchtures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to dis15covering 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, 18and 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 21conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine 24power. 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 27called Wonderful.”

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

    The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omni110110:1presence, omniscience, — Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, — contradict 3God’s allness learnedforever 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 15Scriptural foundationsillumined; 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 27The demonstration lost and foundsight 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 111 111:1agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Chris3Mystical antagoniststian 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.

6    Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than Optical illustration of Scienceis 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,  21Pertinent 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 eviConfirmatory testsdent 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 scien112112:1tifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.

3    Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who de6One school of Truthpart 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 18Unchanging Principlecome 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, afOn sandy foundationsfords 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 113 113:1is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demon3Principle and practicestration 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.

9    The 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.

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, 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 inversionsFor 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

114:1    Usage classes both evil and good together as mind; therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sin3Definition of mortal mindful 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.

12    Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an improper use of the word mind. As Mind is immortal, Imperfect terminologythe 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 mentalbody. 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, 115 115:1the one great obstacle to the reception of that spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind-science 3Philological inadequacycomes, 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 synonymsGod: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.

15Divine imageMan: God’s spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal.

Divine reflectionIdea: 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, deUnrealityceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease, 24death.

Second Degree: Evil beliefs disappearing.

Transitional qualitiesMoral. Humanity, honesty, affection, com27passion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.

116 116:1Third Degree: Understanding.

Spiritual. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, 3Realityspiritual power, love, health, holiness.

    In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as God’s image appears. Science so reverses the evidence 6Spiritual universebefore 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 ScienceWorks 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 21Divine personalityGod is not corporeal, but incorporeal, — that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.

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 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

117:1    The 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.

6    God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physiSpiritual languagecal 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 similiThe miracles of Jesustudes 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.

24    Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates Opacity of the sensessolely 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 30Leaven of TruthPharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 118 118:1of 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.

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 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 spirit15The divine and human contrastedual 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 contradictionsitself, 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

119:1    When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, — that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we 3Unescapable dilemmacannot 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 lawGod and naturegiver, 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 27The sun and Soulis 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 120 120:1seems 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 funda9Reversal of testimonymental 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.

15    Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subHealth and the sensesject 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.

30    When Columbus gave freer breath to the Historic illustrations globe, ignorance and superstition chained the limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and star121121:1vation 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 9Perennial beautyrevelation 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 unfoldingsof 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

122:1    The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, — 3Opposing testimonyassigning 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.

15    The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye’s retina, sky and tree-tops Testimony of the sensesapparently 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.

24    To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein Spiritual sense of lifetakes 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 30 and 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 123 123:1false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as 3Ptolemaic and psychical errorto 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 12Seeming and beingmatter 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.

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 27ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order and continuity of being.

Scientific basis 30    Christian Science differs from material science, but not on that account is it less scientific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-emi124124:1nently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science.

3    Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge, — a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his Physical science a blind beliefstrength. 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 underRight interpretationstood; 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 mentalthe 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 125 125:1of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition 3Corporeal changesfor 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.

12    As 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.

21    The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriThe time and tideculturist 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 126 126:1through its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The 3Mortal nothingnessproblem 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 originalityhas 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.

15    The point at issue between Christian Science on the one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall Antagonistic questionsScience 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. 24Biblical basisI 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 way” of Truth.

    If Christendom resists the author’s application of the 127 127:1word Science to Christianity, or questions her use of the word Science, she will not therefore lose faith in Chris3Science and Christianitytianity, 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.

9    The terms Divine Science, Spiritual Science, Christ Science or Christian Science, or Science alone, she emScientific termsploys 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 sciencehuman, 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.

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 con128128:1ditions, 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, 6Practical Scienceinclusive 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.

27    Science relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation. Mathematics and scientific logicThe 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 129 129:1drawn, 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 disTruth by inversioncover 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 theoriesIn 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.

21    We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up ontology, — “the science of real being.” We must look deep Ontology neededinto 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.

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 130 130:1God must be met. The petty intellect is alarmed by constant appeals to Mind. The licentious disposition is dis3Reluctant guestscouraged over its slight spiritual prospects. When all men are bidden to the feast, the excuses come. One has a farm, another has merchandise, 6and therefore they cannot accept.

    It is vain to speak dishonestly of divine Science, which Excuses for ignorancedestroys all discord, when you can demonstrate 9the 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 12destroy all discord, — since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.

15    Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war Children and adultsagainst spiritual facts; and these material 18beliefs 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 21faith in matter and to inculcate a grain of faith in God, — an inkling of the ability of Spirit to make the body harmonious, — the author has often remembered our Master’s 24love for little children, and understood how truly such as they belong to the heavenly kingdom.

    If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science 27for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the suAll evil unnaturalpremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims 30of 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 131 131:1not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem 3so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all being.

6    When once destroyed by divine Science, the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears. Hence the The error of carnalityopposition of sensuous man to the Science of 9Soul 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.

12THEOLOGY

    Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist? This Science has come 15Churchly neglectalready, after the manner of God’s appointing, but the churches seem not ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural saying, “He came 18unto 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 21and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” As aforetime, the spirit of the Christ, which taketh away the cere24monies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the hearts of men are made ready for it.

    The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and ex27plained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural John the Baptist, and the Messiahdemonstrations of the divine power, demonstrations which were not understood. Jesus’ works 30established his claim to the Messiahship. In reply to John’s inquiry, “Art thou he that should come,” 132 132:1Jesus returned an affirmative reply, recounting his works instead of referring to his doctrine, confident that this 3exhibition of the divine power to heal would fully answer the question. Hence his reply: “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the 6blind 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 9blessed 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 12Mind, prove the unity of God, — the divine Principle which brings out all harmony.

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

    Did the doctrines of John the Baptist confer healing power upon him, or endow him with the truest concep30John’s misgivingstion of the Christ? This righteous preacher once pointed his disciples to Jesus as “the Lamb of God;” yet afterwards he seriously questioned 133 133:1the signs of the Messianic appearing, and sent the inquiry to Jesus, “Art thou he that should come?”

3    Was John’s faith greater than that of the Samaritan Faith according to workswoman, who said, “Is not this the Christ?” There was also a certain centurion of whose 6faith Jesus himself declared, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”

    In Egypt, it was Mind which saved the Israelites from 9belief 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 12that 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 15idea, their demoralization began. Even in captivity among foreign nations, the divine Principle wrought wonders for the people of God in the fiery furnace and 18in kings’ palaces.

    Judaism was the antithesis of Christianity, because Judaism engendered the limited form of a national or 21Judaism antipathetictribal religion. It was a finite and material system, carried out in special theories concerning God, man, sanitary methods, and a religious cultus. 24That 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 in27spired by the Father and would recognize no life, intelligence, nor substance outside of God.

    The Jewish conception of God, as Yawah, Jehovah, 30Priestly learningor 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 134 134:1rabbinical lore. To-day the cry of bygone ages is repeated, “Crucify him!” At every advancing step, truth 3is still opposed with sword and spear.

    The word martyr, from the Greek, means witness; but those who testified for Truth were so often persecuted 6Testimony of martyrsunto 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. 9The 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; 12and so it came about that human rights were hallowed by the gallows and the cross.

    Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed 15strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, Absence of Christ-powerhow can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace? Denial of the possi18bility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element, which gave it divine force and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.

21    The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, — not Basis of miraclesbecause this Science is supernatural or pre24ternatural, 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 al27ways;” 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 30spiritual power over material resistance.

    A miracle fulfils God’s law, but does not violate that law. This fact at present seems more mysterious than 135 135:1the miracle itself. The Psalmist sang: “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan, 3Lawful wondersthat 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 6Lord, 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. 9Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power.

    The same power which heals sin heals also sickness. 12This is “the beauty of holiness,” that when Truth heals Fear and sickness identicalthe sick, it casts out evils, and when Truth casts out the evil called disease, it heals the 15sick. 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 18the 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?

21    It has been said, and truly, that Christianity must be Science, and Science must be Christianity, else one or the The unity of Science and Christianityother is false and useless; but neither is unim24portant or untrue, and they are alike in demonstration. This proves the one to be identical with the other. Christianity as Jesus taught it was not 27a 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, 30not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demonstration of Truth, as must be the case in the cycles of divine light.

136

136:1    Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He taught 3The Christ-missionhis followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelli6gence, 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.

9    The question then as now was, How did Jesus heal the sick? His answer to this question the world rejected. Ancient spiritualismHe appealed to his students: “Whom do 12men 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 15say 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 18some 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. 21That 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 24a sinner comprehend what the disciples did not fully understand? But even Herod doubted if Jesus was controlled by the sainted preacher. Hence Herod’s asser27tion: “John have I beheaded: but who is this?” No wonder Herod desired to see the new Teacher.

    The disciples apprehended their Master better than 30Doubting disciplesdid 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 137 137:1teaching and demonstrating the truth of being. His students saw this power of Truth heal the sick, cast out evil, 3raise 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 6them, the victor over sickness, sin, disease, death, and the grave.

    Yearning to be understood, the Master repeated, 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 12answer 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 15about him.

    With his usual impetuosity, Simon replied for his brethren, and his reply set forth a great fact: “Thou 18A divine responseart the Christ, the Son of the living God!” That is: The Messiah is what thou hast declared, — Christ, the spirit of God, of Truth, Life, and 21Love, 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, 24but my Father which is in heaven;” that is, Love hath shown thee the way of Life!

    Before this the impetuous disciple had been called 27only by his common names, Simon Bar-jona, or son of The true and living rockJona; but now the Master gave him a spiritual name in these words: “And I say also 30unto 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-138138:1world, or the grave] shall not prevail against it.” In other words, Jesus purposed founding his society, not 3on the personal Peter as a mortal, but on the God-power which lay behind Peter’s confession of the true Messiah.

6    It was now evident to Peter that divine Life, Truth, and Love, and not a human personality, was the healer of the Sublime summarysick and a rock, a firm foundation in the realm 9of harmony. On this spiritually scientific basis Jesus explained his cures, which appeared miraculous to outsiders. He showed that diseases were cast out neither 12by 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 15Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.

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

27    Our Master said to every follower: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! . . . Healthful theologyHeal the sick! . . . Love thy neighbor as 30thyself!” 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 139 139:1heals the sick and causes the wicked to “forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” It was our Mas3ter’s theology which the impious sought to destroy.

    From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. 6Marvels and reformationsMoses 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 9wonders. Reforms have commonly been attended with bloodshed and persecution, even when the end has been brightness and peace; but the present new, yet old, re12form in religious faith will teach men patiently and wisely to stem the tide of sectarian bitterness, whenever it flows inward.

15    The decisions by vote of Church Councils as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; the manScience obscuredifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the 18thirty 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 21into 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 24from 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 be27come “the head of the corner.”

    Atheism, pantheism, theosophy, and agnosticism are opposed to Christian Science, as they are to ordinary re30Opponents benefitedligion; but it does not follow that the profane or atheistic invalid cannot be healed by Christian Science. The moral condition of such a man de140140:1mands the remedy of Truth more than it is needed in most cases; and Science is more than usually effectual in the 3treatment of moral ailments.

    That God is a corporeal being, nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: “Thou canst not 6God invisible to the sensessee 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 9shall 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 12of our God. Religion will then be of the heart and not of the head. Mankind will no longer be tyrannical and proscriptive from lack of love, — straining out gnats and 15swallowing camels.

    We worship spiritually, only as we cease to worship materially. Spiritual devoutness is the soul of Chris18The true worshiptianity. Worshipping through the medium of matter is paganism. Judaic and other rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. “The true 21worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”

    The Jewish tribal Jehovah was a man-projected God, 24liable to wrath, repentance, and human changeableness. AnthropomorphismThe Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and caus27eth no evil, disease, nor death. It is indeed mournfully true that the older Scripture is reversed. In the beginning God created man in His, God’s, image; but mor30tals would procreate man, and make God in their own human image. What is the god of a mortal, but a mortal magnified?

141

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

    All revelation (such is the popular thought!) must come from the schools and along the line of scholarly and eccle12No ecclesiastical monopolysiastical descent, as kings are crowned from a royal dynasty. In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect 15followed 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 18monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are made “kings and 21priests unto God.” The outsiders did not then, and do not now, understand this ruling of the Christ; therefore they cannot demonstrate God’s healing power. 24Neither can this manifestation of Christ be comprehended, until its divine Principle is scientifically understood.

27    The adoption of scientific religion and of divine healing will ameliorate sin, sickness, and death. Let our A change demandedpulpits do justice to Christian Science. Let 30it have fair representation by the press. Give to it the place in our institutions of learning now occupied by scholastic theology and physiology, and it will 142 142:1eradicate sickness and sin in less time than the old systems, devised for subduing them, have required for self-estab3lishment and propagation.

    Anciently the followers of Christ, or Truth, measured Christianity by its power over sickness, sin, and death; 6Two claims omittedbut 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 9first proof of Christianity, for Christ, Truth, alone can furnish us with absolute evidence.

    If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly salary, and archi12tectural skill, making dome and spire tremulous with Selfishness and lossbeauty, turn the poor and the stranger from the gate, they at the same time shut the door on 15progress. 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.

18    As in Jesus’ time, so to-day, tyranny and pride need to be whipped out of the temple, and humility and divine SciTemple cleansedence to be welcomed in. The strong cords of 21scientific 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 24dwelling-places for the Most High.

MEDICINE

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

    It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, 6nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have Methods rejectedrecommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than 9the 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 be12lief before it could be considered as medicine.

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

    Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power 27except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was Impossible coalescencefirst chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the 30glory, 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 144 144:1not mingle scientifically. Why should we wish to make them do so, since no good can come of it?

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

    The various mortal beliefs formulated in human philoso9phy, physiology, hygiene, are mainly predicated of matter, Soul and senseand afford faint gleams of God, or Truth. The more material a belief, the more obstinately 12tenacious its error; the stronger are the manifestations of the corporeal senses, the weaker the indications of Soul.

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

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

30    It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired healers understood the Science of Christian healing, or 145 145:1whether they caught its sweet tones, as the natural musician catches the tones of harmony, without being 3Ancient healersable 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 6letter, without the spirit, would have made void their practice.

    The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not 9between material methods, but between mortal minds The struggle and victoryand immortal Mind. The victory will be on the patient’s side only as immortal Mind 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 15on some other minor curative.

    Scientific healing has this advantage over other methods, — that in it Truth controls error. From this fact 18Mystery of godlinessarise its ethical as well as its physical effects. Indeed, its ethical and physical effects are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery 21in 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 unerr24ing Mind.

    Other methods undertake to oppose error with error, and thus they increase the antagonism of one form of 27Matter versus mattermatter towards other forms of matter or error, and the warfare between Spirit and the flesh goes on. By this antagonism mortal mind must con30tinually weaken its own assumed power.

    The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master’s first article of faith propounded 146 146:1to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why 3How healing was losthas this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idol6atry 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 9harmony 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 12Christlike.

    Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God — even the might of Mind — to heal the body. 15Drugs and divinityScholasticism clings for salvation to the person, instead of to the divine Principle, of the man Jesus; and his Science, the curative agent of God, 18is silenced. Why? Because truth divests material drugs of their imaginary power, and clothes Spirit with supremacy. Science is the “stranger that is within thy gates,” 21remembered not, even when its elevating effects practically prove its divine origin and efficacy.

    Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible, 24and the divine origin of Science is demonstrated through Christian Science as old as Godthe holy influence of Truth in healing sickness and sin. This healing power of Truth 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 30all space.

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

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 ap9plied under circumstances where demonstration was humanly possible, this Science showed that Truth had lost none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though cen12turies had passed away since Jesus practised these rules on the hills of Judæa and in the valleys of Galilee.

    Although this volume contains the complete Science of 15Mind-healing, never believe that you can absorb the whole Perusal and practicemeaning of the Science by a simple perusal of this book. The book needs to be studied, 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 21perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and enables you to grasp the spiritual facts of being hitherto unattained and seemingly dim.

24    Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to A definite rule discoveredhis students; but he left no definite rule for 27demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in good30ness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules.

    Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous or as difficult 148 148:1to heal. When his students brought to him a case they had failed to heal, he said to them, “O faithless gen3Jesus’ own practiceeration,” implying that the requisite power to heal was in Mind. He prescribed no drugs, urged no obedience to material laws, but acted in direct 6disobedience to them.

    Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man as created by Spirit, — as God’s man. The former ex9The man of anatomy and of theologyplains the men of men, or the “children of men,” as created corporeally instead of spiritually and as emerging from the lowest, in12stead 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 15function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes up man at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the true tone, and accepts the discord. Anatomy and the18ology reject the divine Principle which produces harmonious man, and deal — the one wholly, the other primarily  — with matter, calling that man which is not the counter21part, 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 con24cord and unity of Spirit and His likeness.

    Physiology exalts matter, dethrones Mind, and claims to rule man by material law, instead of spiritual. When 27Physiology deficientphysiology 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. 30When 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 149 149:1Master demonstrated that Truth could save from sickness as well as from sin.

3    Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is divine Blunders and blunderersScience in every case. Is materia medica a 6science or a bundle of speculative human theories? The prescription which succeeds in one instance fails in another, and this is owing to the different 9mental states of the patient. These states are not comprehended, and they are left without explanation except in Christian Science. The rule and its perfection of opera12tion 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 15not obeyed the rule and proved the Principle of divine Science.

    A physician of the old school remarked with great 18gravity: “We know that mind affects the body someOld-school physicianwhat, and advise our patients to be hopeful and cheerful and to take as little medicine as 21possible; 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 24has cured purely functional disease, and with no power but the divine Mind.

    Since God, divine Mind, governs all, not partially but 27supremely, predicting disease does not dignify therapeutics. Tests in our dayWhatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body. We need to understand the 30affirmations 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 150 150:1be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of Truth, as applied through this Christian 3system of healing disease.

    To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a 6The main purposephenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” This coming, as was promised 9by 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, 12is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demon15strate its divine origin, — to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world.

18    The science (so-called) of physics would have one believe that both matter and mind are subject to disease, Exploded doctrineand that, too, in spite of the individual’s pro21test 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 24all 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 gov27erned 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 30over Mind, — is fading out.

    The hosts of Æsculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind 151 151:1and body are myths. To be sure, they sometimes treat the sick as if there was but one factor in the case; but 3Disease mentalthis 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 6has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its redemption and healing.

    Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of 9the higher class of physicians. We know that if they unIntentions respectedderstood the Science of Mind-healing, and were in possession of the enlarged power it confers 12to 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 oppres15sive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which multitudes would gladly escape.

    Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by 18fright. Fear never stopped being and its action. The Man governed by Mindblood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God. Every function of the 21real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God’s man. The divine Mind that made man 24maintains 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 27its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and 30follow the leadings of truth.

    That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so-152152:1called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but 3Mortal mind dethronedit is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored 6to make this book the Æsculapius 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 9 has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.

    Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by mind in one instance and not in another. Such errors 12All activity from thoughtbeset every material theory, in which one statement contradicts another over and over again. It is related that Sir Humphry Davy once ap15parently 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; 18but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended to heal him, and he recovered accordingly. Such a fact illustrates our theories.

21    The author’s medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian The author’s experiments in medicineScience. Every material dependence had 24failed 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 27for health and happiness.

    Her experiments in homœopathy had made her skeptical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from 30Homœopathic attenuationsAconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug 153 153:1is frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a vestige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug 3which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms of disease.

    The author has attenuated Natrum muriaticum (com6mon table-salt) until there was not a single saline property Only salt and waterleft. The salt had “lost his savour;” and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of 9water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at intervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation 12of homœopathy 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 15the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.

    You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply 18Origin of painmanifests, through inflammation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high 21attenuation 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 24own pain — that is, its own belief in pain.

    We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but 27Source of contagionmortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental con30ditions, and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish 154 154:1error in any form, and certainly we should not be error’s advocate.

3    Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from association. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law ob6tains credit through association, — calling up the fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifestation in the body.

9    This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a Imaginary cholerabed where a cholera patient had died. Imme12diately 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 15had been in that bed.

    If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened and says, “My child will be sick.” 18Children’s ailmentsThe law of mortal mind and her own fears govern her child more than the child’s mind governs itself, and they produce the very results which might 21have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief.

24    That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affections need better guidance, who says to her child: “You look sick,” “You look tired,” “You need rest,” or “You 27need medicine.”

    Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning 30more 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 155 155:1hurt, so don’t think you are.” Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play.

3    When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which Drug-power mentalheals; and according to this faith will the effect 6be. 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 9druggist, 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 12drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, unless it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.

15    The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneBelief in physicsous general belief, which sustains medicine and 18produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of 21popular 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 24weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale. Homœopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the 27drug disappears.

    Vegetarianism, homœopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to 30Nature of drugsdisease, 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 156 156:1possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and 3what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?

    A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 6my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been Dropsy cured without drugsemployed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed 9the fourth attenuation of Argentum nitratum with occasional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She improved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the 12ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their 15prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was recovering. It then occurred to me to give her un18medicated 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 21effects. 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 24taking 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 27cured.

    Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homœopathy. In metaphysics, 30A stately advancematter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homœopathy takes mental symptoms largely 157 157:1into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and 3destroying disease. It succeeds where homœopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is em6ployed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.

    Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on 9Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that The modus of homœopathythe divine Mind has all power. Homœopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of 12thought-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 15of action is proportionately increased.

    If drugs are part of God’s creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced good, then 18Drugging unchristiandrugs cannot be poisonous. If He could create drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs 21them 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 24mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to possess.

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

158

158:1    It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to 3Mythology and materia medicaheal the sick and designated Apollo as “the god of medicine.” He was supposed to have dictated the first prescription, according to the 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 9from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for healing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and 12body. The future history of material medicine may correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was banished from heaven and endured great sufferings 15upon earth.

    Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its effi18Footsteps to intemperancecacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of this wilderness world, — to victimize the race with intoxicating 21prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appetite for strong drink, and men and women become loathsome sots.

24    Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on Advancing degreesmatter and so letting in matter’s higher stra27tum, mortal mind. Homœopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation 30than the drug, is governing the pellet.

    A woman in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was etherized and died in consequence, although her physi159159:1cians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy, 3Effects of fearher 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 6it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into submission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that 9death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of inhaling it.

    Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of men12tal conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so Mental conditions to be heededmuch mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had these 15unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would have considered the woman’s state of mind, and not have risked such treatment. They would either 18have allayed her fear or would have performed the operation without ether.

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

    The medical schools would learn the state of man 24from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the False source of knowledgelungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permit27ting to matter, — how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.

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

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, 6for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.

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

    Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the man15date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does Anatomy and mindanatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 18speaking 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 21despite the mental protest?

    Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, — never capable of acting contrary to mental 24direction. 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-27directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mortal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from anatomy that muscle is not so governed?

30Mind over matter    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 161 161:1elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the lawgiver?

3    You say, “I have burned my finger.” This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mortal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 6has 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; 9while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.

    In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed 12tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If Restrictive regulationsher sister States follow this example in harmony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, 15they 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 18pursuit of happiness.”

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

24    The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case acMetaphysics challenges physicscording to his physical diagnosis, would natu27rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 30this 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 162 162:1than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 3only with health and challenges disease.

    Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 6Truth an alterativeacts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 9carious 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.

12    Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The Practical successindestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 15the 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 re18stored 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 21elongated, 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 24healthy 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 27only 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 30quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He declared that “it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163 163:1which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 3people.”

    Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard University, declared himself “sick of learned quackery.”

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

    “I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 9observation 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 12less sickness and less mortality.”

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

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 18famine, all combined.”

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

    “Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 24obtruded 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 27our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of med30ical doctrines is indeed a task as impracticable as to arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164 164:1perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer’s Cyclops around his cave.”

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 6or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice.”

9    It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medical practitioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris12tian 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 15saved 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 18dead. 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; 21rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality miscalled life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 24remains 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 27immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (St. Paul).