Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures

CHAPTER XIV — RECAPITULATION

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For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little. - ISAIAH.

1	THIS chapter is from the first edition of the author's class-book, copyrighted in 1870. After much labor
3	and increased spiritual understanding, she revised that treatise for this volume in 1875. Absolute Christian Science pervades its statements, to elucidate scientific
6	metaphysics.

	QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
	Question. - What is God?
9	Answer. - God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.
	Question. - Are these terms synonymous?
12	Answer. - They are. They refer to one absolute God. They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity. The attributes of God are justice,
15	mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on.
	Question. - Is there more than one God or Principle?
	Answer. - There is not. Principle and its idea is one,
18	and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-

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1	present Being, and His reflection is man and the universe. Omni is adopted from the Latin adjective signifying all.
3	Hence God combines all-power or potency, all-science or true knowledge, all-presence. The varied manifestations of Christian Science indicate Mind, never matter,
6	and have one Principle.

	Real versus unreal
	Question. - What are spirits and souls?
	Answer. - To human belief, they are personalities
9	constituted of mind and matter, life and death, truth and error, good and evil; but these contrasting pairs of terms represent contraries, as Chris-
12	tian Science reveals, which neither dwell together nor assimilate. Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth is limitless; error is limited. Truth is intelligent; error
15	is non-intelligent. Moreover, Truth is real, and error is unreal. This last statement contains the point you will most reluctantly admit, although first and last it is the
18	most important to understand.

	Mankind redeemed
	The term souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity and nothing else.
21	There is no finite soul nor spirit. Soul or Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish
24	theology have perpetuated the fallacy that intelligence, soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism are the outcome of all man-made beliefs. The Science
27	of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat. Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and
30	its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually.

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	Two chief commands
1	Question. - What are the demands of the Science of Soul?
3	Answer. - The first demand of this Science is, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This me is Spirit. Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt
6	have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no truth, no love, but that which is spiritual. The second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
9	It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact
12	becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established. Having no other gods, turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide
15	him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ.

	Soul not confined in body
	Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as not in the body, and
18	God as not in man but as reflected by man. The greater cannot be in the lesser. The belief that the greater can be in the lesser is an error that
21	works ill. This is a leading point in the Science of Soul, that Principle is not in its idea. Spirit, Soul, is not confined in man, and is never in matter. We reason im-
24	perfectly from effect to cause, when we conclude that matter is the effect of Spirit; but a priori reasoning shows material existence to be enigmatical. Spirit gives
27	the true mental idea. We cannot interpret Spirit, Mind, through matter. Matter neither sees, hears, nor feels.

	Sinlessness of Mind, Soul
	Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind,
30	we begin with Mind, which must be understood through the idea which expresses it and cannot be learned from its opposite, matter. Thus we

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1	arrive at Truth, or intelligence, which evolves its own unerring idea and never can be coordinate with human
3	illusions. If Soul sinned, it would be mortal, for sin is mortality's self, because it kills itself. If Truth is immortal, error must be mortal, because error is unlike
6	Truth. Because Soul is immortal, Soul cannot sin, for sin is not the eternal verity of being.
	Question. - What is the scientific statement of being?
9	Answer. - There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal
12	Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore
15	man is not material; he is spiritual.

	Spiritual synonyms
	Question. - What is substance?
	Answer. - Substance is that which is eternal and inca-
18	pable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: "The substance of things hoped
21	for, the evidence of things not seen." Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance. The spiritual universe, including individual man, is a com-
24	pound idea, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit.

	Eternity of Life
	Question. - What is Life?
	Answer. - Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit.
27	Life is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in
30	proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite;

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1	eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which
3	includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Matter is a human concept. Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life. If
6	Life ever had a beginning, it would also have an ending.
	Question. - What is intelligence?
	Answer. - Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence,
9	and omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle, - Life, Truth, and Love, - named God.

	True sense of infinitude
12	Question. - What is Mind?
	Answer. - Mind is God. The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and
15	that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind - called devil or evil - is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There
18	can be but one Mind, because there is but one God; and if mortals claimed no other Mind and accepted no other, sin would be unknown. We can have but one Mind, if
21	that one is infinite. We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all
24	space is filled with God.

	The sole governor
	We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when after admitting that God, or good, is omnipresent and
27	has all-power, we still believe there is another power, named evil. This belief that there is more than one mind is as pernicious to divine theology
30	as are ancient mythology and pagan idolatry. With

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1	one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good,
3	the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science. The supposed existence of
6	more than one mind was the basic error of idolatry. This error assumed the loss of spiritual power, the loss of the spiritual presence of Life as infinite Truth without an
9	unlikeness, and the loss of Love as ever present and universal.

	The divine standard of perfection
	Divine Science explains the abstract statement that
12	there is one Mind by the following self-evident proposition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can
15	only seem to be real by giving reality to the unreal. The children of God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man,
18	never sins? The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?

	Indestructible relationship
21	God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression
24	of God's being. If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfection, then there was a moment when man did not express
27	God, and consequently a time when Deity was unexpressed - that is, without entity. If man has lost perfection, then he has lost his perfect Principle, the divine
30	Mind. If man ever existed without this perfect Principle or Mind, then man's existence was a myth.
	The relations of God and man, divine Principle and

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1	idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine
3	order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.

	Celestial evidence
6	The unlikeness of Truth, - named error, - the opposite of Science, and the evidence before the five corporeal senses, afford no indication of the grand
9	facts of being; even as these so-called senses receive no intimation of the earth's motions or of the science of astronomy, but yield assent to astronomical
12	propositions on the authority of natural science. The facts of divine Science should be admitted, - although the evidence as to these facts is not supported
15	by evil, by matter, or by material sense, - because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God's re-
18	flection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirituality of the universe is the only fact of creation. "Let
21	God be true, but every [material] man a liar."

	The test of experience
	Question. - Are doctrines and creeds a benefit to man?
	Answer. - The author subscribed to an orthodox
24	creed in early youth, and tried to adhere to it until she caught the first gleam of that which interprets God as above mortal sense. This
27	view rebuked human beliefs, and gave the spiritual import, expressed through Science, of all that proceeds from the divine Mind. Since then her highest creed has
30	been divine Science, which, reduced to human apprehension, she has named Christian Science. This Science

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1	teaches man that God is the only Life, and that this Life is Truth and Love; that God is to be understood, adored,
3	and demonstrated; that divine Truth casts out suppositional error and heals the sick.

	God's law destroys evil
	The way which leads to Christian Science is straight
6	and narrow. God has set His signet upon Science, making it coordinate with all that is real and only with that which is harmonious and eternal.
9	Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not originate in God nor belong to His government. His law, rightly understood, destroys them. Jesus furnished
12	proofs of these statements.

	Evanescent materiality
	Question. - What is error?
	Answer. - Error is a supposition that pleasure and
15	pain, that intelligence, substance, life, are existent in matter. Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind's faculties. Error is the contradiction of Truth.
18	Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not. If error were true, its truth would be error, and we should
21	have a self-evident absurdity - namely, erroneous truth. Thus we should continue to lose the standard of Truth.

	Unrealities that seem real
	Question. - Is there no sin?
24	Answer. - All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore
27	the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not
30	true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian

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1	Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming
3	to be real and identical.

	Christ the ideal Truth
	The Science of Mind disposes of all evil. Truth, God, is not the father of error. Sin, sickness, and death are
6	to be classified as effects of error. Christ came to destroy the belief of sin. The God-principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. God is every-
9	where, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power. Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes
12	all power to God. Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and the sinning and destroy-
15	ing the power of death. Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ.

	Jesus not God
18	In an age of ecclesiastical despotism, Jesus introduced the teaching and practice of Christianity, affording the proof of Christianity's truth and love; but to
21	reach his example and to test its unerring Science according to his rule, healing sickness, sin, and death, a better understanding of God as divine Prin-
24	ciple, Love, rather than personality or the man Jesus, is required.

	Jesus not understood
	Jesus established what he said by demonstration,
27	thus making his acts of higher importance than his words. He proved what he taught. This is the Science of Christianity. Jesus proved
30	the Principle, which heals the sick and casts out error, to be divine. Few, however, except his students understood in the least his teachings and their glorious

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1	proofs, - namely, that Life, Truth, and Love (the Principle of this unacknowledged Science) destroy all error,
3	evil, disease, and death.

	Miracles rejected
	The reception accorded to Truth in the early Christian era is repeated to-day. Whoever introduces the
6	Science of Christianity will be scoffed at and scourged with worse cords than those which cut the flesh. To the ignorant age in which it first
9	appears, Science seems to be a mistake, - hence the misinterpretation and consequent maltreatment which it receives. Christian marvels (and marvel is the sim-
12	ple meaning of the Greek word rendered miracle in the New Testament) will be misunderstood and misused by many, until the glorious Principle of these marvels is
15	gained.

	Divine fulfilment
	If sin, sickness, and death are as real as Life, Truth, and Love, then they must all be from the same source;
18	God must be their author. Now Jesus came to destroy sin, sickness, and death yet the Scriptures aver, "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
21	Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?

	Truth destroys falsity
24	Despite the hallowing influence of Truth in the destruction of error, must error still be immortal? Truth spares all that is true. If evil is real, Truth
27	must make it so; but error, not Truth, is the author of the unreal, and the unreal vanishes, while all that is real is eternal. The apostle says that
30	the mission of Christ is to "destroy the works of the devil." Truth destroys falsity and error, for light and darkness cannot dwell together. Light extinguishes the

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1	darkness, and the Scripture declares that there is "no night there." To Truth there is no error, - all is Truth.
3	To infinite Spirit there is no matter, - all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea.

	Fleshly factors unreal
	Question. - What is man?
6	Answer. - Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in
9	the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and be-
12	cause he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of
15	God, including all right ideas; the generic term forall that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is
18	the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which
21	possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.
	And God said: "Let us make man in our image, after
24	our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
27	creepeth upon the earth."

	Man unfallen
	Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor
30	can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not

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1	God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil,
3	which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo. In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.

	Mortals are not immortals
6	Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed. Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life and intelligence are in matter, and that
9	this matter is man. God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God. Hence man is not mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear, and im-
12	mortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only and eternal verities of man. Mortals are not fallen children of God. They never had a perfect state of being,
15	which may subsequently be regained. They were, from the beginning of mortal history, "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity." Mortality is finally swallowed
18	up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must disappear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man.

	Imperishable identity
21	Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood. Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal
24	man: "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
27	know it no more."

	The kingdom within
	When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;"
30	that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the per-

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1	fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour
3	saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
6	Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.

	Material body never God's idea
9	Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but Christian Science reveals man as the idea of
12	God, and declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science shows it to be impossible that a material body, though
15	interwoven with matter's highest stratum, misnamed mind, should be man, - the genuine and perfect man, the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
18	Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.

	Reflection of Spirit
	Question. - What are body and Soul?
	Answer. - Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the re-
21	flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not
24	in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.

	Man inseparable from Spirit
	Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught
27	some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile of the Great Spirit." Separated from man,
30	who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man, divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is,

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1	there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with God.

	A vacant domicile
3	What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you within mortality? Even according to the teachings of natural science, man has never beheld Spirit
6	or Soul leaving a body or entering it. What basis is there for the theory of indwelling spirit, except the claim of mortal belief? What would be thought of
9	the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a certain class of persons, when no such persons were ever seen to go into the house or to come out of it, nor were they
12	even visible through the windows? Who can see a soul in the body?

	Harmonious functions
	Question. - Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and is there intelligence in matter?
15	Answer. - No, not if God is true and mortal man a liar. The assertion that there can be pain or pleasure
18	in matter is erroneous. That body is most harmonious in which the discharge of the natural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence
21	dwell in matter when matter is non-intelligent and brain-lobes cannot think? Matter cannot perform the functions of Mind. Error says, "I am man;" but this
24	belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material human beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which
27	reflects God. St. Paul said, "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, . . . I conferred not with flesh and blood."

	Immortal birthright
30	Mortal man is really a self-contradictory phrase, for man is not mortal, "neither indeed can be;" man is im-

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1	mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit-
3	ual origin. With what truth, then, could the Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother, "I have gotten a man from the Lord"? On the con-
6	trary, if aught comes from God, it cannot be mortal and material; it must be immortal and spiritual.

	Matter's supposed selfhood
	Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit.
9	An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self-
12	cognizant, - cannot feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind, which constitutes matter's supposed selfhood, and matter
15	can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical senses?

	Chaos and darkness
18	"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
21	(Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos
24	are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.

	Spiritual reflection
27	We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied identity or power, because it has none of the divine hues. Paul
30	says: "For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." (Romans i. 20.)

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1	When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where
3	the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing, - the opposite of the something of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then
6	there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace of heavenly tints.

	Harmony from Spirit
	Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa-
9	tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation. Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind, - is in God, the origin and gov-
12	ernor of all that Science reveals. Material sense has its realm apart from Science in the unreal. Harmonious action proceeds from Spirit, God. inharmony has no
15	Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus
18	attempting to separate Mind from God.

	Evil non-existent
	Man is not God, and God is not man. Again, God, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the oppo-
21	site of good - that is, evil - which seems to make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a
24	false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious parent of evil is a lie.

	Vapor and nothingness
	The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him
27	[the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything, made that was made." This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness,
30	death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the

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1	other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing
3	else. God's being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Like the archpriests of yore, man is
6	free "to enter into the holiest," - the realm of God.

	The fruit forbidden
	Material sense never helps mortals to understand Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man com-
9	prehends and loves Deity. The various contradictions of the Science of Mind by the material senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re-
12	mains forever intact. The forbidden fruit of knowledge, against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death,
15	and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," - this growth of
18	material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and
21	then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the procurers of all discord.

	Sense and pure Soul
24	If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself. If sin is supported, God must uphold it, and this is
27	impossible, since Truth cannot support error. Soul is the divine Principle of man and never sins, - hence the immortality of Soul. In Science we learn that
30	it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; and it will be found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and not a sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the substitu-

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1	tion of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases.

	Soul defined
3	Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the word soul through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil and a good intelligence, resident in matter.
6	The proper use of the word soul can always be gained by substituting the word God, where the deific meaning is required. In other cases, use the word sense,
9	and you will have the scientific signification. As used in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with
12	sense, with material sensation.

	Sonship of Jesus
	Question. - Is it important to understand these explanations in order to heal the sick?
15	Answer. - It is, since Christ is "the way" and the truth casting out all error. Jesus called himself " the Son of man," but not the son of Joseph. As 18 woman is but a species of the genera, he was literally the Son of Man. Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from
21	Christ, the Messiah, - the divine idea of God outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his control over matter. Angels announced to the Wisemen of
24	old this dual appearing, and angels whisper it, through faith, to the hungering heart in every age.

	Sickness erroneous
	Sickness is part of the error which Truth casts out.
27	Error will not expel error. Christian Science is the law of Truth, which heals the sick, on the basis of the one Mind or God. It can heal in no
30	other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not a healer, but causes the belief in disease.

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	True healing transcendent
1	Then comes the question, how do drugs, hygiene, and animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they
3	do not heal, but only relieve suffering temporarily, exchanging one disease for another. We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or
6	Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human. Mind transcends all other power, and will ultimately supersede all other means in healing. In order to heal by
9	Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spiritual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral ignorance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its
12	approach to the standard in Christian Science.

	Terms adopted by the author
	After the author's sacred discovery, she affixed the name "Science" to Christianity, the name "error" to
15	corporeal sense, and the name "substance" to Mind. Science has called the world to battle over this issue and its demonstration, which
18	heals the sick, destroys error, and reveals the universal harmony. To those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, God certainly revealed
21	the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter.

	Science the way
	Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dishonor the ordinary scientific schools, which wrestle with
24	material observations alone, this Science has met with opposition; but if any system honors God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all think-
27	ing persons. And Christian Science does honor God as no other theory honors Him, and it does this in the way of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works
30	through the divine name and nature. One must fulfil one's mission without timidity or dissimulation, for to be well done, the work must be done unselfishly. Christianity

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1	will never be based on a divine Principle and so found to be unerring, until its absolute Science is reached. When
3	this is accomplished, neither pride, prejudice, bigotry, nor envy can wash away its foundation, for it is built upon the rock, Christ.

	Mindless methods
6	Question. - Does Christian Science, or metaphysical healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmerism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism?
9	Answer. - Not one of them is included in it. In divine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind. What are termed natural
12	science and material laws are the objective states of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals.
15	Physical force and mortal mind are one. Drugs and hygiene oppose the supremacy of the divine Mind. Drugs and inert matter are unconscious, mindless. Cer-
18	tain results, supposed to proceed from drugs, are really caused by the faith in them which the false human consciousness is educated to feel.

	Animal magnetism error
21	Mesmerism is mortal, material illusion. Animal magnetism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error in all its forms; it is the human antipode
24	of divine Science. Science must triumph over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories
27	and practices.

	Error only ephemeral
	Question. - Is materiality the concomitant of spirituality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to
30	the understanding and expression of Spirit?

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1	Answer. - If error is necessary to define or to reveal Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise. Material
3	sense is an absurd phrase, for matter has no sensation. Science declares that Mind, not matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts
6	this statement is the false sense, which ever betrays mortals into sickness, sin, and death. If the unimportant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because
9	of their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephemeral views of error ought to be obliterated by Truth. Why malign Christian Science for instructing mortals how
12	to make sin, disease, and death appear more and more unreal?

	Scientific translations
	Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not
15	to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth.
18	Not death, but the understanding of Life, makes man immortal. The belief that life can be in matter or soul in body, and that man springs from dust or from an egg,
21	is the result of the mortal error which Christ, or Truth, destroys by fulfilling the spiritual law of being, in which man is perfect, even as the "Father which is in heaven
24	is perfect." If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents,
27	called disease and sin.

	Material beliefs
	The heathen gods of mythology controlled war and agriculture as much as nerves control sensation or
30	muscles measure strength. To say that strength is in matter, is like saying that the power is in the lever. The notion of any life or intelli-

PAGE 486

1	gence in matter is without foundation in fact, and you can have no faith in falsehood when you have learned
3	falsehood's true nature.

	Sense versus Soul
	Suppose one accident happens to the eye, another to the ear, and so on, until every corporeal sense is quenched.
6	What is man's remedy? To die, that he may regain these senses? Even then he must gain spiritual understanding and spiritual sense in order to
9	possess immortal consciousness. Earth's preparatory
	school must be improved to the utmost. In reality man never dies. The belief that he dies will not establish his
12	scientific harmony. Death is not the result of Truth but of error, and one error will not correct another.

	Death an error
	Jesus proved by the prints of the nails, that his body
15	was the same immediately after death as before. If death restores sight, sound, and strength to man, then death is not an enemy but a better friend
18	than Life. Alas for the blindness of belief, which makes harmony conditional upon death and matter, and yet supposes Mind unable to produce harmony! So long
21	as this error of belief remains, mortals will continue mortal in belief and subject to chance and change.

	Permanent sensibility
	Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are
24	eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immortality are in Spirit and understanding, not in matter, - hence their permanence. If this
27	were not so, man would be speedily annihilated. If the five corporeal senses were the medium through which to understand God, then palsy, blindness, and deafness
30	would place man in a terrible situation, where he would be like those "having no hope, and without God in the world;" but as a matter of fact, these calamities often

PAGE 487

1	drive mortals to seek and to find a higher sense of happiness and existence.

	Exercise of Mind-faculties
3	Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walking in the pathway of Truth both before and
6	after that which is called death. There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than materially. There is more Science in the perpetual
9	exercise of the Mind-faculties than in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains. The apprehension of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf cen-
12	turies ago, and it will repeat the wonder.

	Understanding versus belief
	Question. - You speak of belief. Who or what is it that believes?
15	Answer. - Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the need of believing. Matter cannot believe, and Mind understands. The body cannot believe. The
18	believer and belief are one and are mortal. Christian evidence is founded on Science or demonstrable Truth, flowing from immortal Mind, and
21	there is in reality no such thing as mortal mind. Mere belief is blindness without Principle from which to explain the reason of its hope. The belief that life is sen-
24	tient and intelligent matter is erroneous.
	The Apostle James said, "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."
27	The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.

	Confirmation by healing
30	This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the

PAGE 488

1	enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result of our teachings is their sufficient confirmation. When,
3	on the strength of these instructions, you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that you understand this teaching, and therefore you re-
6	ceive the blessing of Truth.

	Belief and firm trust
	The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the
9	English verb believe; they have more the significance of faith, understanding, trust, constancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in
12	our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.

	All faculties from Mind
	Question. - Do the five corporeal senses constitute
15	man?
	Answer. - Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines
18	these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the testimony of which cannot be true either of man or of his Maker. The corporeal senses can take no
21	cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. Mind alone
24	possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension. Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of organization and decomposition, - otherwise the very
27	worms could unfashion man. If it were possible for the real senses of man to be injured, Soul could reproduce them in all their perfection; but they cannot be dis-
30	turbed nor destroyed, since they exist in immortal Mind, not in matter.

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	Possibilities of Life
1	The less mind there is manifested in matter the better. When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows
3	again. If the Science of Life were understood, it would be found that the senses of Mind are never lost and that matter has no sensation. Then the
6	human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw, - not with an artificial limb, but with the genuine one. Any hypothesis which supposes life to be in matter
9	is an educated belief. In infancy this belief is not equal to guiding the hand to the mouth; and as consciousness develops, this belief goes out, - yields to the reality of
12	everlasting Life.

	Decalogue disregarded
	Corporeal sense defrauds and lies; it breaks all the commands of the Mosaic Decalogue to meet its own de-
15	mands. How then can this sense be the God-given channel to man of divine blessings or understanding? How can man, reflecting God, be de-
18	pendent on material means for knowing, hearing, seeing? Who dares to say that the senses of man can be at one time the medium for sinning against God, at another the me-
21	dium for obeying God? An affirmative reply would contradict the Scripture, for the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet waters and bitter.

	Organic construction valueless
24	The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, because matter has no sensation, and no organic
27	construction can give it hearing and sight nor make it the medium of Mind. Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense
30	of God, man, and creation is non-sense, want of sense. Mortal belief would have the material senses sometimes good and sometimes bad. It assures mortals that there

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