Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 25

169:18 Science not only reveals the origin of all disease as mental, but it also declares that all disease is cured by divine Mind. There can be no healing ex- 169:21 cept by this Mind, however much we trust a drug or any other means towards which human faith or endeavor is directed. It is mortal mind, not mat- 169:24 ter, which brings to the sick whatever good they may seem to receive from materiality. But the sick are never really healed except by means of the divine power.

169:27 Only the action of Truth, Life, and Love can give harmony.

Modes of matter

Whatever teaches man to have other laws and to 169:30 acknowledge other powers than the divine Mind, is anti-Christian. The good that a poisonous drug seems to do is evil, for it robs man of 170:1 reliance on G.o.d, omnipotent Mind, and according to be- lief, poisons the human system. Truth is not the basis of 170:3 theogony. Modes of matter form neither a moral nor a spiritual system. The discord which calls for material methods is the result of the exercise of faith in material 170:6 modes, - faith in matter instead of in Spirit.

Physiology unscientific

Did Jesus understand the economy of man less than Graham or Cutter? Christian ideas certainly present 170:9 what human theories exclude - the Principle of man's harmony. The text, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," not only con- 170:12 tradicts human systems, but points to the self-sustaining and eternal Truth.

The demands of Truth are spiritual, and reach the 170:15 body through Mind. The best interpreter of man's needs said: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink."

170:18 If there are material laws which prevent disease, what then causes it? Not divine law, for Jesus healed the sick and cast out error, always in opposition, never in 170:21 obedience, to physics.

Causation considered

Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to 170:24 human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem 170:27 of Truth's garment.

The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual, - but in either case dependent 170:30 upon his physical organization, - is the Pandora box, from which all ills have gone forth, especially despair.

Matter, which takes divine power into its own hands and 171:1 claims to be a creator, is a fiction, in which paganism and l.u.s.t are so sanctioned by society that mankind has caught 171:3 their moral contagion.

Paradise regained

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of ma- teriality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will 171:6 reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, 171:9 not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brain- ology to learn how much of a man he is.

A closed question

171:12 Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science.

Jesus ill.u.s.trated the divine Principle and the 171:15 power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death.

Matter _versus_ Spirit

Mistaking his origin and nature, man believes himself to 171:18 be combined matter and Spirit. He believes that Spirit is sifted through matter, carried on a nerve, ex- posed to ejection by the operation of matter.

171:21 The intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, - yea, the image of infinite Mind, - subject to non-intelligence!

No more sympathy exists between the flesh and Spirit 171:24 than between Belial and Christ.

The so-called laws of matter are nothing but false be- liefs that intelligence and life are present where Mind 171:27 is not. These false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease. The opposite truth, that intelligence and life are spiritual, never material, destroys sin, sickness, 171:30 and death.

The fundamental error lies in the supposition that man is a material outgrowth and that the cognizance of good 172:1 or evil, which he has through the bodily senses, con- st.i.tutes his happiness or misery.

G.o.dless Evolution

172:3 Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and 172:6 very much in the wrong.

Materialism grades the human species as rising from matter upward. How then is the material species main- 172:9 tained, if man pa.s.ses through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being.

172:12 But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense of being disappears.

Degrees of development

172:15 If man was first a material being, he must have pa.s.sed through all the forms of matter in order to become man.

If the material body is man, he is a portion of 172:18 matter, or dust. On the contrary, man is the image and likeness of Spirit; and the belief that there is Soul in sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, _alias_ 172:21 mortal mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must "put off the old man."

Ident.i.ty not lost

What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the 172:24 material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys 172:27 manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manli- ness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more no- 172:30 bility than the statuesque athlete, - teaching us by his very deprivations, that "a man's a man, for a' that."

When man is man

When we admit that matter (heart, blood, brain, acting 173:1 through the five physical senses) const.i.tutes man, we fail to see how anatomy can distinguish between 173:3 humanity and the brute, or determine when man is really _man_ and has progressed farther than his animal progenitors.

Individualization

173:6 When the supposition, that Spirit is within what it creates and the potter is subject to the clay, is individualized, Truth is reduced to the level 173:9 of error, and the sensible is required to be made manifest through the insensible.

What is termed matter manifests nothing but a material 173:12 mentality. Neither the substance nor the manifestation of Spirit is obtainable through matter. Spirit is positive.

Matter is Spirit's contrary, the absence of Spirit. For 173:15 positive Spirit to pa.s.s through a negative condition would be Spirit's destruction.

Man not structural

Anatomy declares man to be structural. Physiology 173:18 continues this explanation, measuring human strength by bones and sinews, and human life by material law. Man is spiritual, individual, and eter- 173:21 nal; material structure is mortal.

Phrenology makes man knavish or honest according to the development of the cranium; but anatomy, physiology, 173:24 phrenology, do not define the image of G.o.d, the real im- mortal man.

Human reason and religion come slowly to the recogni- 173:27 tion of spiritual facts, and so continue to call upon matter to remove the error which the human mind alone has created.

173:30 The idols of civilization are far more fatal to health and longevity than are the idols of barbarism. The idols of civilization call into action less faith than Buddhism 174:1 in a supreme governing intelligence. The Esquimaux restore health by incantations as consciously as do civi- 174:3 lized pract.i.tioners by their more studied methods.

Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to 174:6 baths, diet, exercise, and air? Nothing save divine power is capable of doing so much for man as he can do for himself.

Rise of thought

174:9 The footsteps of thought, rising above material stand- points, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; but the angels of His presence - the spiritual 174:12 intuitions that tell us when "the night is far spent, the day is at hand" - are our guardians in the gloom. Whoever opens the way in Christian Science is 174:15 a pilgrim and stranger, marking out the path for gen- erations yet unborn.

The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount 174:18 are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth. Truth is revealed. It needs only to 174:21 be practised.

Medical errors

Mortal belief is all that enables a drug to cure mortal ailments. Anatomy admits that mind is somewhere in 174:24 man, though out of sight. Then, if an indi- vidual is sick, why treat the body alone and administer a dose of despair to the mind? Why declare 174:27 that the body is diseased, and picture this disease to the mind, rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel and holding it before the thought of both physician and pa- 174:30 tient? We should understand that the cause of disease obtains in the mortal human mind, and its cure comes from the immortal divine Mind. We should prevent the 175:1 images of disease from taking form in thought, and we should efface the outlines of disease already formulated in 175:3 the minds of mortals.

Novel Diseases

When there are fewer prescriptions, and less thought is given to sanitary subjects, there will be better 175:6 const.i.tutions and less disease. In old times who ever heard of dyspepsia, cerebro-spinal meningitis, hay-fever, and rose-cold?

175:9 What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of G.o.d, can produce suffering! The joy of its presence, its beauty and fragrance, should uplift the 175:12 thought, and dissuade any sense of fear or fever. It is profane to fancy that the perfume of clover and the breath of new-mown hay can cause glandular inflammation, 175:15 sneezing, and nasal pangs.

No ancestral dyspepsia

If a random thought, calling itself dyspepsia, had tried to tyrannize over our forefathers, it would have 175:18 been routed by their independence and in- dustry. Then people had less time for self- ishness, coddling, and sickly after-dinner talk. The ex- 175:21 act amount of food the stomach could digest was not discussed according to Cutter nor referred to sanitary laws. A man's belief in those days was not so severe 175:24 upon the gastric juices. Beaumont's "Medical Experi- ments" did not govern the digestion.