So the conclusion is that the physicist is dealing with the infinitesimals of abstract evil which lie between the mental on the one hand, and the apparent or phenomenal on the other. In his research, the physicist is showing, whether he is aware of it or not, that matter is ultimately primitive mortal mind, and that what we call electricity is the bridge between abstract evil and the sensible evil we call matter-Mrs. Eddy terms it a "sharp surplus." It builds up by means of a process of adding lie to lie, and in this process of build-up it always reaches a stage of unbalance, when it can no longer sustain itself in a state of equilibrium, and the outcome is a thunderstorm, the snarl of the beast, the whirlwind that desolates the prairie, the tornado that sinks a ship. These are but the outcome of mortal mind's inability to sustain itself in a state of equilibrium.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH 293: 3-31. The whole answer to the question is provided in this passage from the textbook. "Electricity is not a vital fluid," —it is not something that runs along a wire, —"but the least material form of illusive consciousness" —that is what Mrs. Eddy calls elsewhere "abstract evil," and electricity is the least material form of it. Electricity is the first phase in the evolution of matter, but from the human standpoint it is the least material form of illusive consciousness. What, for example, is a more material form? Well, the human body, or this table. But electricity is the least material form; and the physicist in his laboratory is examining this form of illusive consciousness; he is examining the first phenomenal phase of abstract evil, which is invisible to his own senses even through an electron-microscope —an example of electricity employed to analyse electricity, like "the blind leading the blind." The reference continues: "...the material mindlessness," —for electricity has no intelligence of its own, —"which forms no link between matter and Mind, and which destroys itself." But it is the link between abstract evil and the phenomenon matter, although it provides no link with the divine Mind. "Matter and mortal mind are but different strata of human belief." Now we go on to see electricity in relation to the human body. "The grosser substratum is named matter or body;" —that is a further degree of consolidation; —"the more ethereal is called mind." So that within the human organization we have the human mind, its consolidation which we call matter or physical structure, and in between the two the electrical phenomenon that physiologically is called nerve. Nerve today in physiology is being recognized as an electrical phenomenon; it is not something on the end of a little fibre, but the link between what we call the human mind and its body. I have seen that actually demonstrated. There is today an instrument which shows without any question that the nervous reactions throughout the human body are electrical phenomena which can be recorded graphically on a sheet of paper. Mrs. Eddy, who wrote on this subject of electricity fifty to seventy years before physiology developed the necessary equipment, was perfectly right; and only today is her statement being understood and demonstrated. "This so-called mind and body is the illusion called a mortal, a mind in matter. In reality and in Science, both strata, mortal mind and mortal body," —with electricity the link, —"are false representatives of man."

Now it becomes clear why "nerve" appears in the allegory in the chapter "Christian Science Practice," and why it is so important to know how to deal with it in the practice. Nerve is not only the source of pleasure and pain, but it is one of the fundamental constituents of the whole human organization, and not until we can bring it under the control of spiritual sense and power shall we have conscious control over our own bodies. We can see clearly today that as we gain control of nerve Christianly and scientifically, we have conscious control of the human system, and the human system will become as malleable in the hands of enlightened spiritual consciousness as clay in the hands of the potter.

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