# Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898)/01 Science, Theology, Medicine

SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
CHAPTER I.
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.
Another parable spake he unto them: The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. — Matthew.
IN the year 1866 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God Christian Science discovered. had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing.
This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, the everpresent God, — the sovereign Omnipotence, Mission of Christian Science. delivering the children of men from every ill “that flesh is heir to.” Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are inspired with a diviner nature and essence, fresh pinions are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God.
​Feeling so perpetually the false consciousness that life inheres in the body, yet remembering that God is A divine discontent. really our Life, we may well tremble, in the prospect of those days wherein we must say, “I have no pleasure in them.”
Whence came to me this heavenly conviction, — a conviction in antagonism with the testimony of the physical senses? The divine Spirit testifying through Christian Science unfolded to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and the immortal cravings, “the price of learning Love,” establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, since being in God cannot suffer.
My conclusions were reached by allowing the evidence of this revelation to multiply with mathematical Demonstrable evidence. certainty, and the lesser demonstration to prove the greater; as the product of three multiplied by three, equalling nine, proves conclusively that three times three duodecillions will be, must be, nine duodecillions, — not a fraction more, not a unit less.
When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the Light shining in darkness. death-valley, I learned these truths in Divine Science: that all real Being is in the divine Mind and idea; that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of Truth — called error, sin, sickness, disease, death — is the false testimony of false material sense; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind, which this same mind calls matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.
​My discovery that erring, mortal, misnamed mind produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, New lines of thought. set my thoughts to work in new channels, and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All, and matter is naught, as the leading factor in Mind-Science.
Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind Scientific evidence. and idea. This great fact is not, however, scientific seen to be supported by sensible evidence, until its Principle is demonstrated by healing the sick, and thus proven absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion can be reached.
For three years after my discovery I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing; searched the Solitary research. Scriptures, read little else; kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish or depressing. I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced, in primitive Christian healing, by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know its Science, and I won my way to absolute conclusions, through divine revelation, reason, and experiment. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually, and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: “Unto us a child is born, . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful.”
Jesus once said of his lessons: “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His ​will, he 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, omnipresence, omniscience, — Spirit possessing all power, God's allness learned. filling all space, constituting all Science, — these verities contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, wherein all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.
Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, concerning man's perfectibility, and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
In following these leadings of Scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were Scriptural foundations. illumined, reason and revelation were reconciled; and afterwards the Truth of Christian Science was demonstrated. No human pen or tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, Science and Health, and neither tongue nor pen can ever overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criticism, or by careless and mischievous students, and its ideas may be temporarily forced into wrong channels; but the Science and Truth therein will remain forever, to be discerned and demonstrated.
Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science The demonstration lost and found. to heal mortal minds and bodies; but this power was lost sight of, and must again be spiritually discerned, taught, and demonstrated, — according to Christ's command, — with “signs ​following,” and its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe on Him, — that is, understand Truth.
No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Agnosticism, Pantheism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, or Mystical antagonists. Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind to be opposed to the divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science.
Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The true Science of God and man is no more supernatural An optical illustration. than is the science of numbers; though departing from the realm of the physical, as it must, some may deny its right to the name of Science. The Principle of Divine Metaphysics is God; its practice is the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate Science. It reverses all perverted and physical hypotheses concerning Deity, even as the science of optics rejects, while it explains, the incidental or inverted image, and shows what this inverted image is meant to represent.
A prize of one hundred pounds has been offered in Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Pertinent proposal. Science, — an essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical effects to physical causes, rather than to a final spiritual cause. This fact is one of many which show that Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality.
After a careful examination of my discovery, and its demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became Confirmatory tests. evident to me, — that Mind governs the body, not partially, but wholly. I submitted my metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest ​practical tests. Since then this system has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever Scientifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.
Is there more than one school of Christian Science?
Christian Science is indivisible. There can therefore he but one method in its teaching. Those who depart One school. from this method forfeit their claims to belong to its school, and become simply adherents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some other so-called school; by which is meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of divinity, borrowed from that truly Divine Science which eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain intensely human in their origin and tendency, and are not Scientifically Christian.
From the infinite One in Christian Science cometh one Principle and its idea; and with this one Principle Unchanging Principle. come Spiritual rules and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever;” for thus is the perfect Principle of healing, and the Christ, characterized in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Any theory of Christian Science which departs from what has already been stated, and proved to be true, On sandy foundations. affords no foundation whereupon to establish a genuine school of this Science. Also, if this new school claims to be Christian Science, and yet uses another author's discoveries, without giving that author proper credit, it inculcates a breach of that divine commandment in the Hebrew decalogue, Thou shalt not steal.
​God is the Principle of Christian Science. As there is but one God, there can be but one Principle in this Letter and Principle. Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demonstration of this divine Principle. The letter of Science plentifully reaches humanity to-day, but its Spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part, the heart and Soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but its dead body, — pulseless, cold, inanimate.
The fundamental propositions of Christian Science are summarized in the four following, to me, Reversible propositions. self-evident propositions. Even if read backward, these propositions will be found to agree in statement and proof.
1. God is All in all.
2. God is good. Good is Mind.
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.
4. Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. — Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, Life.
Which of the denials in Proposition Four is true? Both are not, cannot be true. According to the Scripture, I find that God is true, “and every [mortal] man a liar.”
The metaphysics of Christian Science, like the rules of mathematics, prove the rule by inversion. For example: there is no pain in Truth, and no truth Inversions. in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no mind 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.
Usage classes both evil and good together as mind; ​therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sinful humanity mortal mind, — meaning, by this term, Definition of mortal mind. the flesh opposed to Spirit, — human error and evil, in contradistinction to Truth and Good; for 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 divine.
In Science, Mind is one, — including noumena and phenomena, God and His thoughts.
Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an improper use of the word mind. As Mind is Imperfect terminology. immortal, the phrase mortal mind implies something untrue and therefore unreal; and as the phrase is used in teaching Christian Science, it is meant to designate something which has no real existence. Indeed, if a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would be used; but in expressing the new tongue we must sometimes recur to the old and imperfect, and the new wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of the letter.
Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul Causation mental. and body. It shows the Scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of Being, and sets free the imprisoned thought; so that we may know, in Divine Science, that the universe, including man and his divine Principle, is harmonious and eternal. Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is here termed mortal mind.
Apart from the usual opposition to everything new, the one great obstacle to the reception of that ​spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind-Science comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for Philological inadequacy. metaphysical statements, and the consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make them comprehensible by any reader who has not personally demonstrated Christian Science, as brought forth in my discovery. Job says: “The ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.” Great care is needed to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual text.
Scientific Definition of Immortal Mind.
Divine synonyms. God: Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul,
Spirit, Mind.
Divine image. Man: God's universal idea, individual, perfect, eternal.
Divine reflection. Idea: An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding. — Webster.
Scientific Definition of Mortal Mind.
First Degree: Depravity.
Physical: Passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, Unreality. pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, disease, death.
Second Degree: Evil disappearing.
Transitional qualities. Moral: Honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
Third Degree: Spiritual salvation.
Reality. Spiritual: Faith, wisdom, power, purity, understanding, health, love.
​In this third degree mortal mind disappears. Science so reverses the evidence before the corporeal human Spiritual universe. senses as to make this Scriptural testimony true in our hearts, “the last shall be first, and the first shall be last,” that God and His idea may be to us — what divinity really is, and must of necessity be — all-inclusive.
A correct view of Christian Science, and its adaptation to healing, includes vastly more than is at first Aim of Science. seen. Works on Metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the mental power 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, — and insistence upon the fact that God is all, therefore matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.
Christian Science strongly designates the thought Divine incorporeality. that God is not corporeal, but incorporeal, — that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.
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, and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is personal Being, — in this sense, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind and a finite form do not, cannot, coalesce.
The term individuality is also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, individual horse; whereas God is one, — not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.
​God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no Spiritual language. physical nature and significance to the Supreme Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do this. God's essential language is spoken of, in the last chapter of Mark's Gospel, as the new tongue, the spiritual meaning whereof is attained through “signs following.”
Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure language of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality The Principle of miracles. by similitudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself, and by his power over the sick and sinful. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the Principle underlying the miracles wrought by Jesus, and especially the mighty, crowning, and unparalleled miracle of his triumphant exit from the flesh.
Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely to human reason; and, because of the opacity Human opacity. of human reason to the true light, Jesus' works and words are dimly reflected and feebly transmitted thereby. Truth is a revelation.
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which he defined as human Leaven. doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened,” impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the doctrines of Christ, and the spiritual interpretation thereof, — an interpretation far higher than the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
​Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing on the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world?
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work, and must destroy the entire mass of error; and so be eternally glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include The divine and human contrasted. spiritual laws, emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by a 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 is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws; and this continues until the leaven of Spirit changes the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
The definitions of law, material law, as given by natural science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided Certain contradictions. against itself; because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual, and are therefore in contradiction to the divine decrees, and violate the law of Love, wherein nature and God are one, and the natural order of Heaven comes down to earth.
When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, — that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we Dilemma. cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, — we disown the Almighty; for such theories lead to one of two things. They ​either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter; or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma, and consider 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 matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, and so make Him guilty of maintaining perpetual misrule, in the form and under the name of natural law.
In one sense God is identical with nature; but this nature is spiritual and not expressed in matter. The God and nature. law-giver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal of 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 of Spirit, God.
Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body, — as astronomy reverses the human The sun and Soul. perception of the movement of the solar system, — and makes body tributary to Mind. As it is the earth which is in motion, while the sun is at rest, though in viewing the sunrise one finds it impossible to believe the sun not to be really rising, so the body is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seems otherwise to finite sense; but we shall never understand this while we admit that soul is in body, or mind in matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence. Soul is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man co-exists with and reflects Soul.
​Science reverses the testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental Reversal of testimony. facts of Being. Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick, if these senses declare him to be in good health? And is he well, if the senses say he is sick?
Health is not a condition of matter, nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on this subject. Health and the senses. The Science of Mind-healing shows 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 testimony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies error, heals the sick, overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.
Any conclusion pro or con deduced from supposed sensation in matter, or matter's supposed consciousness Some false conclusions. of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate, and so leads to disease.
When Columbus gave freer breath to the globe, ignorance and superstition chained the honest limbs of the Historic illustrations. brave old navigator, and disgrace and starvation stared him in the face; but sterner still had been his fate, if that discovery had undermined the favorite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.
Copernicus mapped out the stellar system; but before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields were unexplored.
The Chaldean Wise Men read in the stars the fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher ​revelation than the horoscope was to them displayed upon the empyrean, earth and heaven were still bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God's Astrology and beauty. perennial and happy sunshine, golden with Truth. So we have goodness and beauty to gladden the heart; but man, left to the hypotheses of material sense, unexplained by Science, is as the wandering comet or desolate star, — “a weary searcher for a viewless home.”
The earth's diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical eye, and the sun seems moving from east to west, Astronomic unfoldings. instead of the earth from west to east. Until this false testimony of the eye was rebuked
by clearer views of the everlasting facts, it deluded the judgment and induced false conclusions. Science shows appearances to be often erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple rule that the greater controls the lesser. The sun is the central stillness, so far as our solar system is concerned, and the earth revolves about the sun once a year, besides turning daily on its own axis.
As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the action of divine Principle; and this reflection of God is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to Divine Science, as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.
The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of Being, and so creates a reign of discord, Opposing testimony. — assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, 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 by the demonstrations of Jesus, nineteen hundred years ago; yet this so-called sense still makes mortal mind tributary to mortal body, and ordains certain sections of matter, such as brain and nerves, as the seats of pain and pleasure, whence matter reports, to this mind, its status of happiness or misery.
The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops Eye and mercury. apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet and mingle. The barometer, that little prophet of storm and sunshine, — denying the testimony of the senses, — points to fair weather, in the midst of murky clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions, which every thinker may recall for himself.
To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein takes away life; but to spiritual sense, and in Science, Venous life. Life goes on unchanged, and Being is eternal. Temporal life is a false sense of existence.
Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul and body that Ptolemy made as to the solar system. Ptolemaic and psychical error. They insist that soul is in body, and mind therefore tributary to matter. Science has destroyed the false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies; and Science also will destroy the greater error as to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and Principle of man will then appear. The Ptolemaic blunder could not affect the harmony of Being, as much as 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 the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in the universe.
The Science of Mind shows conclusively how it is that matter seemeth to be, but is not. Divine Science, Seeming and being. rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.
The term Christian Science was introduced by the author to designate the Scientific system of Metaphysical Healing.
The revelation consists of two parts:
1. The discovery of this Divine Science of Mind-healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures, and through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master.
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 illustrate an ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates forever the Scientific order and continuity.
Christian Science differs from material science; but Scientific basis. not on that account is it less Scientific. On the contrary. Christian Science is pre-eminently Scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of all science.
Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge, — Physical science and blind belief. a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his strength. When this human belief lacks organizations to support it, the foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual ​basis, nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effects for cause, seeks to find life and intelligence in matter, so limiting Life, and holding fast to discord and death. In a word, human belief is a blind conclusion from material reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which immortal Spirit silences forever and forever.
The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science from its Principle, God, and can then be understood; Right interpretation. but when explained on the basis of physical sense, and represented as subject to growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma.
Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to Principle, and but support the All force mental. equipoise of that thought-force which launched the earth in its orbit, and saith to the proud wave, “Thus far and no farther.”
Spirit is the Life, Substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but Divine Science declares that they belong wholly to Mind, are inherent in Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
The elements and functions of the physical body and physical world will change, as mortal mind changes in Corporeal changes. its phenomena. What is now considered the best coudition for organic and functional health in the human body will no longer be found indispensable thereto. On the contrary, opposite conditions will be found equally harmonious and health-giving. Neither organic inaction nor overaction will be ​dangerous; for both these conditions will be as normal and natural to changed mortal thought, and therefore as harmonious in their physical manifestations, as the prior states which human belief had created and sanctioned.
As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow, and joy, — fear, hope, and faith to understanding, — the visible manifestation of the latter will be man governed by Soul, not sense. Reflecting God's government man is self-governed, and cannot be controlled by other minds when subordinate to the divine Spirit, thus proving our theories about laws of health and hypnotism to be valueless.
The seasons will come and go, with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The The time and tide. agriculturist will find these changes cannot affect his crops. “As a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed.” The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower, before he beholds its seed.
Thus matter will be finally proven to be nothing but a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect man through Final nothingness. its supposed organic action or existence. Error will be no longer useful in proving Truth. The problem of nothingness, or “dust to dust,” will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease, when man beholds God's reflection, incorporeal individuality, as man seeth his face in a glass.
All Science is divine. Human thought never projected the least portion of true Science. Human belief ​has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of A lack of originality. Spirit, and so repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone, or sent forth a positive sound.
The point at issue between Christian Science, on the one hand, and popular theology, on the other, is this: Antagonistic questions. Shall Science explain cause and effect as being both natural and spiritual? Or shall all that is beyond the cognizance of the material senses be called supernatural, and left to the mercy of speculative hypotheses?
I have set forth Christian Science, and its application to the treatment of disease, only as I have discovered Biblical basis. them. I have demonstrated the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men, through Mind; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master, and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only textbook. I have had no other guide in “the strait and narrow way” of this Science.
If Christendom resists the author's application of the term Science to Christianity, or questions her use of it, Science and Christianity. she will not therefore lose faith in Christianity, 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 entitled to a classification as Truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge, or understanding of God; for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.
The terms Divine Science, Spiritual Science, Science of Being, Christian Science, or Science alone, she employs interchangeably, according to the requirements of ​the context. These terms stand for everything relating to God as Principle, — as the unerring, supreme, Terms used. eternal Mind. It may be said, however, that the term Christian Science relates especially to this Science as applied to humanity. It reveals God, not as the author of sin, sickness, and death, but as divine Principle, supreme Being, Mind, exempt from all evil. It teaches that matter is the falsity, not the fact, of existence; that nerves, brain, stomach, lungs, have — as matter — no intelligence, life, or sensation.
There is no physical science, inasmuch as all true Science proceeds from divine Intelligence. Science cannot No physical science. therefore be human, and is not a law of matter; for matter is not a lawgiver. Science is an emanation of eternal Mind, and is alone able to interpret Truth aright. It has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance, the Comforter which leadeth into all Truth.
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 conditions, and that these are final, and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is natural and primitive. It is not miraculous to itself.
The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God, and His government of the universe, Practicality. inclusive of man. From this it naturally follows that business men have found that Christian Science enhances their physical and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness, and an ability to exceed their ordinary business capacity. The human ​mind, imbued with this Science, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowledge of the Science of Being develops the latent capacities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher circles. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicuity.
An odor becomes beneficent and agreeable, only in proportion to its escape into the surrounding atmosphere. Odor and catalepsy. So it is with our knowledge of Science. If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man for waking him from a cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist Truth, which banishes — yea, forever destroys — with the higher testimony of Spirit, the so-called evidences of matter.
Science relates to Mind, not matter. Science rests on fixed Principle, and not upon the judgment of false Mathematics and logic. sensation. The addition of two sums in mathematics must always bring the same result. So is it with logic. If both the major and the minor propositions of a syllogism be correct, the conclusion cannot be false, if properly drawn. So in Christian Science, there are no discords or contradictions, because its logic is as harmonious as the reasoning of an accurately stated syllogism, or a properly computed sum in arithmetic. Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate no error in premise or conclusion.
If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can Truth by inversion. discover it by reversing the material testimony, be it pro or con, — be it in accord with your preconceptions, or utterly contrary thereto.
​Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the intelligence of matter, — a belief which Science overthrows. “In those days there will be tribulation such Antagonistic theories. as has not been since the beginning;” and earth will echo the cry, “Why art thou [Truth] come hither to torment us before the time?” Animal Magnetism, Atheism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Agnosticism, Pantheism, and Infidelity are antagonistic to true Science, and fatal to the demonstration thereof; and so are some other systems.
We must abandon pharmaceutics, and take up ontology, — “the Science of abstract Being.” We must look Ontology. deep into Science, instead of accepting only the outward 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 illusions along the path which Science must tread, in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.
The generous liver may object to the author's small estimate of the pleasures of the table. The sinner sees, Reluctant guests. in the system herein taught, that the demands of God must be met. The petty intellect is alarmed by constant appeals to Mind. The licentious disposition is discouraged over its slight spiritual prospects. When all men are bidden to the feast, the excuses come. One has a farm, another has merchandise; and therefore they cannot accept.
It is vain to plead ignorance of this Divine Science, which destroys all human discord, when you Excuses for ignorance. can demonstrate its actuality. It is unwise to doubt if there is a Science in perfect harmony ​with God, its Principle, — a Science which, understood and demonstrated, would destroy all discord, — since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that Good, and its sweet concords, have all-power.
Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs that war Children and adults. against spiritual Truth; and these 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 faith in matter, and inculcate a grain of faith in God, — an inkling of the ability of Spirit to make the body harmonious, — the author has remembered often our Master's love 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 for the supremacy of God, or Good, and doubts it, ought All evil unnatural. we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of cvil, 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 not seem as surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem as real as Truth. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by Science, in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all Being.
When once reversed by Divine Science, the evidence before the corporeal senses disappears. Hence the opposition of sensuous man to the Science of Carnality. Soul, and the signiicance of the Scripture, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” The ​central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical power.
Theology.
Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches, as some insist? This Science has come Churchly neglect. already, and come through the one whom God called. Jesus once said: “I thank Thee, oh Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 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 ceremonies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the hearts of men are made ready for it.
The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and explained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural St. John the Baptist, and the Messiah. demonstrations of the divine power, which were not understood. This established his
claim to the Messiahship. In reply to John's inquiry, “Art thou he that should come?” he returned an affirmative reply, — recounting his works, instead of referring to his doctrine, confident that this exhibition of the divine power to heal would fully answer that question. Hence his reply: “Go and show John those things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. . . . And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” In other words, he gave his benediction to whomsoever should not deny that such effects, coming from Mind, prove the unity of God, — the divine Principle which brings out all harmony.
​The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea, and the man who lived it, out of their synagogues, and retained Jesus rejected. their materialistic beliefs about God. Jesus' system of healing received no aid or approval from other sanitary or religious systems, from doctrines of physics or divinity; and it has not yet been generally accepted. To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, ecclesiasticism shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinful, if it be wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory. Anticipating this rejection of the true idea of God, — this salvation from all error, physical and mental, — Jesus asked, “When the Son of Man Cometh, 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 conception
John's misgivings. of the Christ? This righteous preacher once pointed his disciples to Jesus as “the Lamb of God;” yet afterwards he seriously questioned the signs of the Messianic appearing, and sent the inquiry to Jesus, “Art thou he that should come?”
Was John's faith any greater than that of the Samaritan woman, who said, “Is not this the Christ?” Instances of faith. There was also a certain centurion, who had, as Jesus himself declared, more faith than could be found elsewhere in Israel.
In Egypt it was Mind which saved the Israelites from belief in the plagues. In the wilderness, streams flowed Hebrew incidents. from the rock, and manna fell from the sky. They looked upon the brazen serpent, and were straightway healed of the poisonous stings of vipers. In national prosperity, miracles attended the ​successes of the Hebrews; and when they departed from the living ideal, their demoralization began. Even in captivity, among foreign nations, the divine Principle wrought wonders for the people of God, in the fiery furnace and in kings' palaces.
Judaism was the antithesis of Christianity, because it engendered the limited form of a national or tribal Judaism antipathetic. religion. It was a finite and material system, carried out in special theories concerning God, man, sanitary methods, and a religious cultus. That he made “himself equal with God,” was one of the Jewish accusations against him who planted Christianity on the foundation of Spirit, who taught as he was inspired by the Father, and would recognize no life, intelligence, or substance outside of God.
The Jewish conception of God, as Yawa, Jehovah, or only a mighty hero and king, has not yet given place to Priestly learning. the true knowledge of God. Creeds and rituals have not cleansed their hands of rabbinical
lore. To-day the cry of bygone ages is repeated, “Crucify him!” At every advancing footstep, Truth is still pursued with sword and spear.
The word martyr, from the Greek, means witness; but those who testified for Truth were so often persecuted Martyrdom. unto death, that at length the word martyr was narrowed in its significance, and so has come to mean always one who dies for his convictions. The new faith in the Christ, Truth, so roused the hatred of the opponents of Christianity, that its followers were burned, crucified, and otherwise persecuted; and so it came about that human rights were hallowed by the gallows and the cross.
​Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Absence of Christ-power. Christ-power, how can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace? Denial of the possibility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element which gave it divine force, and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.
The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony, which overcomes discord, Basis of miracles. — not because it is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of Good. Jesus said: “I know that Thou hearest me always;” and thus 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 spiritual power over material resistance.
A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law. This fact at present seems more mysterious than Lawful wonders. the miracle itself. The Psalmist sang: “What ailed thee, oh thou sea, that thou fleddest, — thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills, like lambs? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.” The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law. Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise of divine power.
The same power which heals sin, heals also sickness. This is “the beauty of holiness,” that when Truth heals ​the sick, it casts out evils; and when it casts out the evil called disease, it heals the sick. When Christ Sin and sickness identical. cast out the devil of dumbness, or dumb devil (to use the Gospel phrase), the dumb spake. There is to-day danger of repeating the offence of the Jews, by limiting the Holy One of Israel, and asking: “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” What cannot God do?
It has been said, and truly, that Christianity must be Science, and Science must be Christianity, else one The unity of Science and Christianity. or the other is false and useless; but neither is unimportant or untrue, and they are alike in demonstration; and this proves the one to be identical with the other. Christianity, as Jesus taught it, was not a creed, or a system of ceremonies, or a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah; but it was the demonstration of divine Principle, casting out error and healing the sick, not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demonstration thereof, as it must be in the cycles of divine light.
Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He The Christ-mission. taught his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error
and heal both the sick and sinful. He claimed no intelligence, action, or life separate from God. Despite the persecution this brought upon him, he used his divine power to save men, both bodily and spiritually.
The question then, as now, was, How did Jesus heal the sick? His answer to this question the world rejected. He appealed to his students: “Who do men ​say that I am?” that is: Who or what is it which is thus identified with casting out evils and healing Ancient spiritualism. the sick? They replied, “Some say Elias, others say John the Baptist, others say Jeremiah.” These prophets were considered dead, and this reply may indicate that some of the people believed that Jesus was a medium, controlled by the spirit of John or Elias.
This ghostly fancy was repeated by Herod himself. That a wicked king and debauched husband should have no high appreciation of Divine Science, and the great work of the Master, was not surprising; for how could such a sinner comprehend what the disciples did not fully understand? But even Herod doubted if Jesus were controlled by the sainted preacher. Hence his assertion: “John have I beheaded; but who is this?” No wonder Herod desired to see the new teacher. The disciples apprehended their Master better than did others; but they did not comprehend all that he Doubting disciples. said and did, or they would not have questioned him so often. Jesus patiently persisted in teaching and demonstrating the Truth of Being. His students saw this power of Truth heal the sick, cast out evil, raise the dead; but the ultimate of this wonderful work was not spiritually discerned, even by them, until after the crucifixion, when their immaculate Teacher stood before them, the victor over sickness, sin, and death.
Yearning to be understood, the Master repeated, “But who 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 ​answer already given, and his renewal of the question, it is plain that Jesus completely eschewed the opinion implied in their narrow citation of the common report about him.
With his usual impetuosity, Simon replied for his brethren; and his reply set forth a great fact: “Thou, A divine response. art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” that is: The Messiah is what thou hast declared, — Christ, the divine idea of Truth and Life, which heals mentally. This assertion elicited from Jesus the benediction, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven!” — that is: Love, the divine Principle of man, hath shown thee the way of Life!
Heretofore the impetuous disciple had been called only by his common names, Simon Barjona, or Son of The true and living rock. Jona; but now the Master gave him a spiritual name, in these words: “And I say also
unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock [the meaning of the Greek word petros, or stone] I will build my church; and the gates of hell [hades, the underworld, or the grave] shall not prevail against it.” In other words, Jesus the Christ purposed founding his society, not on the personal Peter, as a mortal man, but on the God-power which lay behind his confession of the Messiah.
It was now evident to Peter that the divine Principle, Truth, and Love, and not a human personality, was the Sublime summary. healer of the sick, and a rock in the spiritual kingdom. On this spiritually Scientific basis Jesus explained his cures, which appeared miraculous ​to outsiders. He showed that diseases were cast out neither by corporeality nor by medicine, but by the divine Spirit, casting out the errors of mortal mind and body. The supremacy of Spirit was the rock on which Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.
Jesus established, in the Christian era, the precedent for all Christianity, theology, and healing. Christians New era in Jesus. are under as direct orders now, as they were then, to be Christlike, to possess his Spirit, to follow his example, and to heal the sick as well as the sinful. It is easier for Christianity to cast out sickness than sin; for the sick are more willing to part with pain than to give up sinful pleasure. The Christian can prove this to-day as readily as he could eighteen centuries ago.
Our Master said to every follower: “Go ye into all the world! . . . Heal the sick, and preach the Gospel to the Healthful theology. poor! . . . Love thy neighbor as thyself!” It was the theology of Jesus which healed the sick and the sinful. It is his theology, in this book, and the spiritual interpretation thereof, which heals the sick, and causes the “wicked to forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” It was our Master's theology which the priests sought to destroy.
From beginning to end the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Mind over matter. Moses Marvels and reformation. proved this, by what men called miracles. So did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. The Christian era was ushered in through signs and wonders. Reforms have commonly been attended with bloodshed and persecution, even when the end has been brightness ​and peace; but the present new, but yet old, reform in religious faith will teach men patiently and wisely to stem the tide of sectarian bitterness, whenever it flows inward.
The decisions, by vote of Church Councils, as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; Science obscured. the manifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New, — these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole into the divine record, darkening, to some extent, the inspired pages with its own hue. But mistakes could not wholly obscure the Science of the Scriptures, seen from Genesis to Revelation, or mar the demonstration of Jesus, and annul the healing of the prophets, who doubtless foresaw that “the stone which the builders rejected” would become “the head of the corner.”
Atheism, Pantheism, Theosophy, and Agnosticism are opposed to Christian Science, as they are to ordinary Opponents benefited. religion; but it does not follow that the profane or atheistic invalid cannot be healed by Christian Science. The moral condition of such a man demands the remedy of Truth more than it is needed in most cases; hence Science is more than usually effectual in the treatment of moral ailments.
That God is a corporeal being nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: “Thou canst not God the invisible. see My face; for there shall no man see Me, and live.” We know Him only as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We shall obey and adore, in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature, ​and love Him uncerstandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence of our God. Religion will then be of the heart, and not of the head. Theology will no longer be tyrannical and proscriptive, from lack of love, — straining out gnats and swallowing camels.
We worship spiritually, only as we cease to worship materially. Spiritual devoutness is the soul of The true worship. Christianity. Worshipping through the medium of matter is Paganism. Judaic and other rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”
The Jewish tribal Jehovah was a man-projected God, liable to wrath, repentance, and human changeableness. Anthropomorphism. The Christian Science God is universal, eternal divine Love, which changeth not, and sendeth no evil and no sin upon man. It is indeed mournfully true that the elder Scripture is reversed. In the beginning God created man in His, God's, image; but mortals would procreate man, and make God in their human image. What are the gods of mortals, but themselves infinitely magnified?
This indicates the distance between the theological and ritualistic religion of other ages, and the Science A long step. preached by Jesus. More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration. Few understand or will adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for healing. 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 and practices.
​All revelation (such is the popular thought!) must come from the schools, and along the line of scholarly Divine kings and priests. and ecclesiastical descent, as kings are crowned from a royal dynasty. In healing the sick and sinful, Jesus elaborated the fact that it was the divine Principle, and Christ spirit, which governed the corporeal Jesus. For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man. The Bible declares that all believers are “made kings and priests unto God.” The outsiders did not then, and do not now, understand this Principle of the Christ; therefore they cannot demonstrate God's healing power. Neither can this manifestation of Christ be understood, until its Principle is explained in Divine Science.
The adoption of Scientific religion and of metaphysical healing will ameliorate sin, sickness, and death. Let our A change demanded. pulpits do justice to Christian Science. Let it have fair representation by the press. Give to Christian Science the place in our institutions of learning now occupied by scholastic theology and physiology, and it will eradicate sickness and sin in less time than the old systems, devised for subduing these evils, have required for self-establishment and propagation.
Anciently the followers of Christ, or Truth, measured Christianity by its power over sickness, sin, and death; Two claims omitted. but modern religionists omit all but one of these claims, — the power over sin. We must seek the undivided garment, the whole of Christianity as our first proof of Christian Science, for that alone can furnish us with absolute evidence.
​If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly salary, and architectural skill, making dome and spire tremulous with Selfishness and loss. beauty, turn the poor and stranger from the gate, they also shut the door on progress. In vain do the manger and cross tell their story to pride and fustian. Sensuality palsies the right hand, and causes the left to let go its divine grasp.
As in Jesus' days, tyranny and pride need to be whipped out of the Temple, and humility and Divine Science to be Temple cleansed. welcomed in. The strong cords of Scientific demonstration, twisted by Jesus, are still needed, to purge the temples of their vain traffic in worldly policy, and make them meet dwelling-places for Truth.
Medicine.
Which was first. Mind or medicine? If Mind was first, and self-existent, then Mind, not matter, must Question of precedence. have been the first medicine. Mind being All, it made medicine; but that medicine was Mind. It could not have been that which departs from the nature and action of Mind, for Truth is God's remedy for error of every sort.
It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, or provide them for human use; else Jesus also would Methods rejected. have recommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinful, if the sick cannot rely on God for help, and the sinful can. The divine Mind never called matter medicine; and matter required a material and human belief, before it could be considered as medicine.
​The human mind uses one error as a medicine for another. It seeks, on the same principle, to appease Error not curative. malice with revenge, and to quiet pain with morphine. Of two evils, it chooses the greater in both cases. You admit that mind influences the body somewhat, but you conclude that the stomach, blood, nerves, bones, hold the preponderance of power. Controlled by this 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 Mind. The body is not controlled Scientifically by a negative mind.
Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived therefrom. If Mind was Coalescence. first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due unto its holy name. Inferior and unspiritual methods of healing may try to make Mind and medicine coalesce; but the two will not mingle harmoniously. Why should we wish to make them do so, since no good can come of it?
If Mind is foremost and superior, let us rely upon Mind, which needs no co-operation from lower powers, even if those so-called powers were real.
* Naught 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 philosophy, physiology, hygiene, are mainly predicated of Feeble glimpses. matter, and afford faint gleams of God, or Truth. The more material a belief, the more obstinately tenacious its error; the stronger the ​manifestations of the corporeal senses, the weaker the indications of Soul.
Will-power is not Science. It belongs to the senses, and its use is to be condemned. Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Will-power. Christian Science, but sheer animal magnetism. Will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the Science of Being. Truth, and not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to disease, “Peace, be still.”
Because Science wars with so-called physical science, even as Truth wars with error, the old schools of Conservative antagonism. medicine will oppose it. Ignorance, pride, and prejudice close the door to whatever is not stereotyped. When the Science of Being is understood, every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be the universal panacea.
It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired healers understood the Science of Christian healing, or Ancient healers. whether they caught its sweet tones, like the natural musician, without being able to explain them. So divinely imbued were they with its Spirit, that the lack of the letter could not hinder their work; and that letter, without the Spirit, would have made void their example.
The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not between material methods, but between mortal The struggle and victory. minds and immortal Mind. The victory will be on the patient's side, only as immortal Mind, through Christian Science, subdues the human belief in disease. Otherwise, it matters not what ​method one may adopt, whether it is faith in drugs, in hygiene, or in some other minor curative.
Scientific healing has this advantage over other methods, — that in it Truth controls error. From this Advantage and mystery. fact arise its ethical as well as its physical effects. Indeed, these effects are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness always presents to the ungodly, — the mystery always arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerring Mind.
Other methods undertake to oppose error with error, and thus they increase the antagonism of Matter versus matter. one form of matter towards other forms of matter. By so doing, mortal mind must continually weaken its own assumed power.
The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our master's first article of faith, propounded Healing lost. to his students, was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry 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, harmony has been lost. Such systems are barren of the vitality of spiritual power, whereby material sense becomes the servant of Science.
Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God, — even the might of Mind, — to heal the Drugs and divinity. body. Scholasticism clings to the person, instead of the divine Principle, of the man Jesus to save, ​while his Science, the curative agent of God, is silenced. Why? Because Science divests material drugs of their imaginary power, and clothes Spirit with supremacy. Science is “the stranger within our gates,” remembered not, even when its elevating effects practically prove its divine origin and efficiency.
Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible; and its divine origin is demonstrated through the holy Christian Science as old as God. influence of its Truth, in healing sickness and sin. This healing power of Truth 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 through all space.
Divine Metaphysics is now reduced to a system, in a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of Reduction to system. the age in which we live. This system enables the learner to demonstrate anew the divine Principle upon which Jesus' healing was based, and the sacred rules for its present application to the cure of disease.
For more than a quarter of a century in 1894 these rules have been submitted to the broadest practical tests; and everywhere, when honestly applied, under circumstances which make demonstration possible, Christian Science has shown that Truth has lost none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though centuries have passed away since Jesus practised these rules on the hills of Judea and in the valleys of Galilee.
Although this volume contains the complete Science of Mind-healing, never dream that you can Perusal and practice. absorb its whole meaning by a simple perusal of this book. It needs to be studied. The ​demonstration of its rules will plant you more firmly on its spiritual groundwork. This will lift you high above the perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and enable you to grasp the spiritual facts of Being, hitherto unattained and seemingly dim.
Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to Rules needed. his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating his Principle of healing and preventing disease. This remained to be discovered through Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in goodness, but Science alone reveals its Principle and demonstrates its rules.
Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous, or difficult to treat. When his students brought to him cases Jesus' own practice. they had failed to heal, he said unto them, “Oh ye of little faith!” implying that the requisite power was in Mind. He prescribed no drugs, urged no obedience to material laws, but acted in direct disobedience thereto.
Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man as created by Spirit, — as God's man. The former The man of anatomy and of theology. explains the man of men, or the “children of men,” as created corporeally instead of spiritually, and as emerging from the lowest, instead of from the highest, conception of Being. Each defines man as both physical and mental, and places mind at the mercy of matter, for every function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes man up at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the true tone, and accepts the discord. Both 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 counterpart, 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 concord and unity of Spirit, and its likeness.
Physiology exalts matter and dethrones Mind, and pretends to rule man by material law, instead of spiritual. Physiology. When it 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. When mortals sin, under this ruling of the schools, they are left to the guidance of a theology which admits God to be the healer of sin but not of sickness; although our blessed Master demonstrated that Truth could save from sickness as well as sin.
Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is Blunders and blunderers. Mind-Science, in every case. Medicine is not a science, but a bundle of speculative human theories. The prescription which succeeds in one instance, fails in another; and this is owing to the different mental states of the patient. These states are not comprehended; and they are without a sign, except to the skilful Christian Scientist. The rule, and its perfectness of operation in my system, never vary. 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 not obeyed the rule or proved the Principle of Christian Science.
A physician of the old school remarked with great gravity: “We know that mind affects the body ​somewhat, and advise our patients to be hopeful and cheerful, and to take as little medicine as possible; but Old-school physician. 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 has cured purely functional disease, and with no means but Mind.
Since her discovery that Mind governs all, not partially but supremely, she has submitted her metaphysical Tests in our day. system of treating disease to the strongest tests. It has gradually gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever Scientifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice. To-day there is hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not to be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of Truth, as applied through this metaphysical system for healing disease.
To-day the healing power of Truth is demonstrated to be an immanent, eternal quality, or Principle, The main purpose. instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its discovery is the second coming of the Gospel of “peace on earth and good-will to men.” This coming is, as was promised by the Master, for its establishment as a permanent dispensation, to remain forever among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its first demonstrator, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the healing of physical disease; but these are only to demonstrate its divine origin, to attest the reality of its higher mission of healing the errors of mortals.
​The science (so-called) of physics would have you believe that both matter and mind are subject to Exploded doctrine. disease, and that, too, in spite of mind's protest, This view is as evidently erroneous to the author, and will be to all others at some future day, as the practically rejected doctrine of the predestination of souls to damnation or salvation. The doctrine that man's harmony is governed 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 superiority of matter over Mind, — is both shocking and absurd.
The hosts of Æsculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human Disease mental. mind and body are one. To be sure, they sometimes treat the sick as if there were but one factor in the case; but this one factor they represent to be body, not mind. Omnipotent Mind could not possibly create a remedy outside itself. Erring, finite, human mind has an absolute need of something beyond itself, for its redemption and healing.
Great respect is due to the motives and philanthropy of the higher class of physicians. We know that if Intentions respected. they understood the Science of Mind-healing, and were in possession of the enlarged power it confers to benefit the race physically and spiritually, they would rejoice with us. Even this one reform in medicine would ultimately deliver mankind from the awfully oppressive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which multitudes would gladly escape.
Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by ​fright. Fear never stopped Being and its action. The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Death born from fear. Life. Every function of man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill, it has no control of what is termed the human mechanism. The divine Mind made man, and maintains His own image and likeness. This human mind is destroyed. All that really exists is the divine Mind, and its idea wherein the entire action of Being will be found harmonious and eternal! The only difficulty is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and fall at the feet of Truth.
That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this Mind the governor. so-called mind is a liar, and must, by its own consent, yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves it from itself. The author has endeavored to make this book the Æsculapius of Mind, that it may give hope to the sick, and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth 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 All activity from thought. beset every material theory. One statement contradicts another, over and over again. It is related that once Sir Humphry Davy apparently cured a case of paralysis, by simply introducing a thermometer into the patient's mouth. This he did merely in order to ascertain the temperature of the patient's body; but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended ​to heal him, and recovered accordingly. Such a fact illustrates our theories.
The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian The author's experiments in medicine. Science. Every material dependence had failed 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 for health and happiness.
Her experiments in homœopathy had made her skeptical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from Homœopathy. Aconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug is attenuated to such a degree that not a vestige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug which expels the disease, or changes one of its symptoms.
The author has attenuated natrum muriaticum (common table-salt) until there was not a single saline property Only salt and water. left. The salt had “lost its savor;” and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of water, 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 of homœopathy, and the most potent, steps out of matter into Mind; and thus it should be seen that Mind, or metaphysics, is the healer, and that there is no efficacy in the drug. This discovery leads to more light. You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply ​manifests your belief in pain, through inflammation and swelling; and you call this belief a boil. Now administer Origin of pain. mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth on this subject, 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 own 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 Source of contagion. mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our company; and we shall avoid the loquacious tattler about disease, as we should the advocate of crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to hear about error; and certainly we should not be its advocate.
Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from association. It being a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law obtains credit, through association, — calling up the fear that creates the image of disease, and its consequent manifestation in the body.
This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident. A gentleman was made to believe that he Cholera. occupied a bed where a cholera patient had died. Immediately the symptoms of this disease appeared in him, and he died. The fact was, that he had not caught the cholera by material contact, because no such patient had been in that bed.
If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened, and says, “My child will be sick.” ​The law of mortal mind, and her own fears, govern her child, more than the child's mind governs itself, Children's ailments. and produce the very results which might have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that the exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief.
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 need medicine.”
Such a mother runs to her little one, who has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning more childishly than her child, “Mamma knows you are hurt.” The more successful method of treatment is to say: “Oh, nonsense [no-sense material]! You're not hurt, so don't think you are.” Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play again.
When the sick recover, by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, Drug-power. which heals; and according to this faith will the effect be. Even when you take away the individual confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced it from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the majority of beliefs rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, unless it rests on Science, is but a minority belief, governed by the majority.
The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneous general belief — which sustains medicine, and ​produces all medical results — works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Hygienic delusion. Science must mightily outweigh the power of popular belief, in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts the more powerfully to offset the discords of matter, the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material scale and against Spirit, — against its own interests. Homœopathy diminishes the drug; but its potency increases as the drug disappears.
Vegetarianism, Homœopathy, and Hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to Drugging diminished. disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less you have of them the better? If drugs possess intrinsic virtues or curative qualities, those qualities must be mental. Who named them, and what made them good or bad, beneficial or injurious to mortals?
A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been Dropsy cured. employed, and yet the patient looked like a barrel, as she lay in her bed. I prescribed the fourth attenuation of Argenitum nitricum, with occasional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She improved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms, from their prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine, when she was recovering. It then occurred to me to give her unmedicated 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 effects. After trying this, she informed me that she could get along two days without globules; but on the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets, — and receiving occasional visits from me, — but employing no other means, and was cured.
Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homœopathy. In metaphysics A stately advance. matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homœopathy takes mental symptoms largely into consideration, in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause, in judging and destroying 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 employed through the Science of Mind, never sharing its rights with the weak things of matter.
Metaphysics, in Christian Science, exterminates the drug, and employs Mind alone as the curative Principle, The value of homœopathy. acknowledging that the divine Mind has all power; but homœopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of thought-attenuations, that it becomes more like mortal mind than like the substratum of mortal mind, called matter; and its power of action is proportionately increased.
If drugs are part of God's creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced good, then The origin of drugs. drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could create drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all, and designs ​them for medical use, then why did Jesus not employ them and recommend them for the treatment of disease? Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Mortal mind confers the only power a drug can ever possess.
Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so reach the body but leave both mind and body the worse for this Narcotics and surgery. submission. Christian Science impresses the entire mental strata, namely, mind and body, and brings out the proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both amputates error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this sincere and profound surgery.
The profession of medicine originated in idolatry, with pagan priests, who besought the gods to heal the Priests and physicians. sick, and designated Apollo as the God of Medicine. He was supposed to dictate the first prescription, according to the History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine. It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease. Hippocrates turned from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for healing. This was deemed progress; but really, it only introduced another form of mythology and pagan worship. The future fate and history of material medicine will correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was banished from Heaven, and endured great sufferings on earth.
Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind, and its Intoxicants. power to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of physiology and materia medica, — to victimize the race with ​intoxicating prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appetite for strong drinks, and men and women are made loathsome sots.
Footsteps of progress and spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on Advancing degrees. matter, and so letting in its higher stratum, 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 than the drug, is governing the pellet.
A lady in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was etherized, and died in consequence, although her physicians Etherization. insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy her sister testified that the deceased protested against inhaling the ether, and said it would kill her; but she was compelled by her physicians to take it. 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 her death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by her fear of inhaling it.
Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of mental conditions, and treat the patient as if she were Mental conditions to be heeded. so much mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had those unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would not have risked such treatment, in that woman's state of mind. They would either have allayed her fear, or have performed the operation without ether.
The sequel proved that this Lynn lady died from ​effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease or the operation.
The medical schools would learn the state of man from matter, instead of Mind. They examine the lungs, Source of knowledge. tongue, and pulse, to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permitting
to mind, how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.
Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces disease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician must of necessity increase disease with his own mind. Then he addresses himself to the work of destroying it, through the power of matter.
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; for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed therein, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.
The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the direction of mortal mind, than are the
Muscular action. organic action and secretions of the viscera. When this mind quits the body, the heart becomes as torpid as the hand.
Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves, to convey the mandate of mind to muscle, and cause action; but what Anatomy and mind. does anatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent? Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance, and not in another, and become cramped, despite the mental protest?
​Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, — never capable of acting contrary to mental direction. If muscles can cease to act, and become rigid of their own preference, — be deformed or symmetrical, as they please, or as disease directs, — they must be self-directing. 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?
Is man a material fungus, without Mind to help Fungus. him? Is a stiff joint or contracted muscle as natural a result of law as the supple and elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the lawgiver?
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 Fire-action. inspiration has created states of mind which are able to nullify the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.
In 1880 Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If her Restrictive regulations. sister States follow this example, in harmony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the Declaration, “Man is endowed by his Maker with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The oppressive State statutes touching medicine remind one of those words of the famous Madame Roland, as she knelt to a statue of the Goddess of Liberty, ​erected near the guillotine: “Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!”
The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient he is sick, and treating the case Ordinary practice. according to his diagnosis, would, by this course, induce that very disease, even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. He thus commits an unconscious offence against happiness and health, and ensures a good job for himself, if not a fatal one for his patient. The physician “agrees with his adversary quickly,” but upon different terms from the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees only with health, and challenges disease.
Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. It acts as an Wonderful cures. alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effects of this Science are to stir the human mind to a change of base, whereon it may yield to the divine Mind.
Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. Practical success. The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without the conditions of matter, and also without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working out the rules of Science in practice, the author has restored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease, and in their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been elongated, cicatrized joints have been ​made supple, and carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. What is called the lost substance of lungs has been restored, and healthy organizations have been established, even where disease was organic instead of functional.
For the benefit of the reader let me quote Testimony of medical teachers. from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice:
It is impossible to calculate the mischief which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick people.
Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard University, declares himself “sick of learned quackery.”
Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon-extraordinary to the King, says:
I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality.
Dr. Mason Good, a learned professor in London, says:
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 famine, all combined.
Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published essay, says:
Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses obtruded ​upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displaced to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of medical 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 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer's Cyclops around his cave.
Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, says:
No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice.