Tests in our day

Since God, divine Mind, governs all, not partially but 149:27 supremely, predicting disease does not dignify therapeutics. Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body. We need to understand the 149:30 affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and demonstrate truth according to Christ. To-day there is hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not to 150:1 be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of Truth, as applied through this Christian 150:3 system of healing disease.

The main purpose

To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demon- strated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a 150:6 phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of "on earth peace, good-will toward men." This coming, as was promised 150:9 by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, 150:12 is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical heal- ing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demon- 150:15 strate its divine origin, - to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world.

Exploded doctrine

150:18 The science (so-called) of physics would have one be- lieve that both matter and mind are subject to disease, and that, too, in spite of the individual's pro- 150:21 test and contrary to the law of divine Mind. This human view infringes man's free moral agency; and it is as evidently erroneous to the author, and will be to 150:24 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 gov- 150:27 erned by physical conditions all his earthly days, and that he is then thrust out of his own body by the operation of matter, - even the doctrine of the superiority of matter 150:30 over Mind, - is fading out.

Disease mental

The hosts of AEsculapius are flooding the world with diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind 151:1 and body are myths. To be sure, they sometimes treat the sick as if there was but one factor in the case; but 151:3 this one factor they represent to be body, not mind. Infinite Mind could not possibly create a remedy outside of itself, but erring, finite, human mind 151:6 has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its redemption and healing.

Intentions respected

Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of 151:9 the higher class of physicians. We know that if they un- derstood the Science of Mind-healing, and were in possession of the enlarged power it confers 151:12 to benefit the race physically and spiritually, they would rejoice with us. Even this one reform in medicine would ultimately deliver mankind from the awful and oppres- 151:15 sive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which multitudes would gladly escape.

Man governed by Mind

Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by 151:18 fright. Fear never stopped being and its action. The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God. Every function of the 151:21 real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no con- trol over God's man. The divine Mind that made man 151:24 maintains His own image and likeness. The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and 151:27 its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found har- monious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and 151:30 follow the leadings of truth.

Mortal mind dethroned

That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so- 152:1 called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but 152:3 it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored 152:6 to make this book the AEsculapius of mind as well as of body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth 152:9 has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.

All activity from thought

Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by mind in one instance and not in another. Such errors 152:12 beset every material theory, in which one statement contradicts another over and over again. It is related that Sir Humphry Davy once ap- 152:15 parently cured a case of paralysis simply by introducing a thermometer into the patient's mouth. This he did merely to ascertain the temperature of the patient's body; 152:18 but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended to heal him, and he recovered accordingly. Such a fact illustrates our theories.

The author's experiments in medicine

152:21 The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science. Every material dependence had 152:24 failed her in her search for truth; and she can now understand why, and can see the means by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source 152:27 for health and happiness.

Homoeopathic attenuations

Her experiments in homoeopathy had made her skep- tical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from 152:30 Aconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug 153:1 is frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a ves- tige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug 153:3 which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms of disease.

Only salt and water

The author has attenuated Natrum muriaticum (com- 153:6 mon table-salt) until there was not a single saline property left. The salt had "lost his savour;" and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of 153:9 water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at in- tervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation 153:12 of homoeopathy and the most potent rises above matter into mind. This discovery leads to more light. From it may be learned that either human faith or the divine Mind is 153:15 the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.

Origin of pain

You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply 153:18 manifests, through inflammation and swell- ing, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high 153:21 attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its 153:24 own pain - that is, its own belief in pain.

Source of contagion

We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but 153:27 mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental con- 153:30 ditions and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish 154:1 error in any form, and certainly we should not be error's advocate. 154:3 Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from as- sociation. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law ob- 154:6 tains credit through association, - calling up the fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifes- tation in the body.

Imaginary cholera

154:9 This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a bed where a cholera patient had died. Imme- 154:12 diately the symptoms of this disease appeared, and the man died. The fact was, that he had not caught the cholera by material contact, because no cholera patient 154:15 had been in that bed.

Children's ailments

If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened and says, "My child will be sick." 154:18 The law of mortal mind and her own fears gov- ern her child more than the child's mind gov- erns itself, and they produce the very results which might 154:21 have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief.

154:24 That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affec- tions need better guidance, who says to her child: "You look sick," "You look tired," "You need rest," or "You 154:27 need medicine."

Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning 154:30 more childishly than her child, "Mamma knows you are hurt." The better and more successful method for any mother to adopt is to say: "Oh, never mind! You're not 155:1 hurt, so don't think you are." Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play.

Drug-power mental

155:3 When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals; and according to this faith will the effect 155:6 be. Even when you take away the individual confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced the drug from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the 155:9 druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate 155:12 drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, un- less it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.

Belief in physics

155:15 The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This errone- ous general belief, which sustains medicine and 155:18 produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of 155:21 popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less 155:24 weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale. Homoeopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the 155:27 drug disappears.

Nature of drugs

Vegetarianism, homoeopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to 155:30 disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less in quantity you have of them the better? If drugs 156:1 possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and 156:3 what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?

Dropsy cured without drugs

A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 156:6 my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed 156:9 the fourth attenuation of Argentum nitratum with occa- sional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She im- proved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the 156:12 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 156:15 prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was re- covering. It then occurred to me to give her un- 156:18 medicated 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 156:21 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 156:24 taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets, - and receiving occasional visits from me, - but employing no other means, and she was 156:27 cured.

A stately advance

Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homoeopathy. In metaphysics, 156:30 matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homoeopathy takes mental symptoms largely 157:1 into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and 157:3 destroying disease. It succeeds where homoeopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is em- 157:6 ployed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.

The modus of homoeopathy

Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on 157:9 Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that the divine Mind has all power. Homoeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of 157:12 thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this so- called mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power 157:15 of action is proportionately increased.

Drugging unchristian

If drugs are part of God's creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced good, then 157:18 drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could cre- ate drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs 157:21 them for medical use, why did Jesus not employ them and recommend them for the treatment of disease? Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Erring 157:24 mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to possess.

Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so relieve the body; 157:27 but they leave both mind and body worse for this sub- mission. Christian Science impresses the entire corpore- ality, - namely, mind and body, - and brings out the 157:30 proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this spiritual and profound pathology.

Mythology and materia medica

158:1 It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to 158:3 heal the sick and designated Apollo as "the god of medicine." He was supposed to have dic- tated the first prescription, according to the 158:6 "History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine." It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease, "the god of pestilence." Hippocrates turned 158:9 from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for heal- ing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and 158:12 body. The future history of material medicine may correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was banished from heaven and endured great sufferings 158:15 upon earth.

Footsteps to intemperance

Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its effi- 158:18 cacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of this wil- derness world, - to victimize the race with intoxicating 158:21 prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appetite for strong drink, and men and women become loathsome sots.

Advancing degrees

158:24 Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter's higher stra- 158:27 tum, mortal mind. Homoeopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation 158:30 than the drug, is governing the pellet.

Effects of fear

A woman in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was etherized and died in consequence, although her physi- 159:1 cians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy, 159:3 her sister testified that the deceased protested against inhaling the ether and said it would kill her, but that she was compelled by her physicians to take 159:6 it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into sub- mission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that 159:9 death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of inhaling it.

Mental conditions to be heeded

Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of men- 159:12 tal conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so much mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had these 159:15 unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would have considered the woman's state of mind, and not have risked such treatment. They would either 159:18 have allayed her fear or would have performed the opera- tion without ether.

The sequel proved that this Lynn woman died from 159:21 effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease or the operation.

False source of knowledge

The medical schools would learn the state of man 159:24 from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permit- 159:27 ting to matter, - how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.

159:30 Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces dis- ease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to increase disease with his own mind, when he 160:1 should address himself to the work of destroying it through the power of the divine Mind.

160:3 The systems of physics act against metaphysics, and vice versa. When mortals forsake the material for the spiritual basis of action, drugs lose their healing force, 160:6 for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.

Obedient muscles

160:9 The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the direction of mortal mind, than are the organic action and secretion of the viscera. When this so-called 160:12 mind quits the body, the heart becomes as tor- pid as the hand.

Anatomy and mind

Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the man- 160:15 date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does anatomy say when the cords contract and be- come immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 160:18 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 160:21 despite the mental protest?

Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, - never capable of acting contrary to mental 160:24 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- 160:27 directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mor- tal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from anatomy that muscle is not so governed?

Mind over matter

160:30 Is man a material fungus without Mind to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted muscle as much a result of law as the supple and 161:1 elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the lawgiver?

161:3 You say, "I have burned my finger." This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mor- tal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 161:6 has created states of mind which have been able to nullify the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; 161:9 while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.

Restrictive regulations

In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed 161:12 tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If her sister States follow this example in har- mony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, 161:15 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 161:18 pursuit of happiness."

The oppressive state statutes touching medicine re- mind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, 161:21 as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the guillotine: "Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Metaphysics challenges physics

161:24 The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case ac- cording to his physical diagnosis, would natu- 161:27 rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mor- tal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 161:30 this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his "adversary quickly," but upon different terms 162:1 than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 162:3 only with health and challenges disease.

Truth an alterative

Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 162:6 acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels hu- mors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 162:9 carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.

Practical success

162:12 Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 162:15 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 re- 162:18 stored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 162:21 elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and 162:24 healthy organizations have been established where disease was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires 162:27 only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.

Testimony of medical teachers

With due respect for the faculty, I kindly 162:30 quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He declared that "it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163:1 which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 163:3 people."

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard Uni- versity, declared himself "sick of learned quackery."

163:6 Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of England, said:

"I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 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 163:12 less sickness and less mortality."

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

163:15 "The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 163:18 famine, all combined."

Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published 163:21 essay said:

"Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 163:24 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify 163:27 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 med- 163:30 ical doctrines is indeed a task as impracticible as to arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164:1 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer's Cyclops around his cave."

164:3 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, said:

"No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases 164:6 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."

164:9 It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medi- cal practitioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris- 164:12 tian Science. But all human systems based on material premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is 164:15 saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased thought-germs are exterminated.

If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality mis- called life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from sin, disease, and death. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 164:27 immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (St. Paul).



CHAPTER VII - PHYSIOLOGY

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? - JESUS.

He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. - PSALMS.

165:1 PHYSIOLOGY is one of the apples from "the tree of knowledge." Evil declared that eating this fruit 165:3 would open man's eyes and make him as a god. Instead of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man's God- given dominion over the earth.

Man not structural

165:6 To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to subjugate intelligence, to make mind mor- 165:9 tal, and to place this so-called mind at the mercy of material organization and non-intelligent matter.

165:12 Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since man-made material theories took the place of spiritual 165:15 truth.

Causes of sickness

You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then 165:18 you consult your brain in order to remember what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting 166:1 the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own, and the human mind is all that can produce pain.

166:3 As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels, acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made 166:6 on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the body is lost.

Delusions pagan and medical

The Mohammedan believes in a pilgrimage to Mecca 166:9 for the salvation of his soul. The popular doctor believes in his prescription, and the pharmacist believes in the power of his drugs to save a man's 166:12 life. The Mohammedan's belief is a religious delusion; the doctor's and pharmacist's is a medical mistake.

Health from reliance on spirituality

166:15 The erring human mind is inharmonious in itself. From it arises the inharmonious body. To ignore God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. 166:18 Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn 166:21 that He can do all things for us in sickness as in health.

Failing to recover health through adherence to physi- 166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns to God. The invalid's faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be with matter by most of the medical systems; but when 166:30 Mind at last asserts its mastery over sin, disease, and death, then is man found to be harmonious and immortal.

167:1 Should we implore a corporeal God to heal the sick out of His personal volition, or should we understand the 167:3 infinite divine Principle which heals? If we rise no higher than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not com- 167:6 prehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. Our pro- portionate admission of the claims of good or of evil de- 167:9 termines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our longevity, and our Christianity.

The two masters

We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Sci- 167:12 ence with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot successfully usurp the place and power of the divine source of all health and perfection. If 167:15 God made man both good and evil, man must remain thus. What can improve God's work? Again, an error in the premise must appear in the conclusion. To have 167:18 one God and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you must love God supremely.

Half-way success

The "flesh lusteth against the Spirit." The flesh and 167:21 Spirit can no more unite in action, than good can coin- cide with evil. It is not wise to take a halt- ing and half-way position or to expect to work 167:24 equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There, is but one way - namely, God and His idea - which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the 167:27 body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is im- possible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is abso- 167:30 lutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.

Substituting good words for a good life, fair seeming 168:1 for straightforward character, is a poor shift for the weak and worldly, who think the standard of Christian Science 168:3 too high for them.

Belief on the wrong side

If the scales are evenly adjusted, the removal of a single weight from either scale gives preponderance to the oppo- 168:6 site. Whatever influence you cast on the side of matter, you take away from Mind, which would otherwise outweigh all else. Your belief militates 168:9 against your health, when it ought to be enlisted on the side of health. When sick (according to belief) you rush after drugs, search out the material so-called laws of 168:12 health, and depend upon them to heal you, though you have already brought yourself into the slough of disease through just this false belief.

The divine authority

168:15 Because man-made systems insist that man becomes sick and useless, suffers and dies, all in consonance with the laws of God, are we to believe it? Are 168:18 we to believe an authority which denies God's spiritual command relating to perfection, - an authority which Jesus proved to be false? He did the will of the 168:21 Father. He healed sickness in defiance of what is called material law, but in accordance with God's law, the law of Mind.

Disease foreseen

168:24 I have discerned disease in the human mind, and rec- ognized the patient's fear of it, months before the so-called disease made its appearance in the body. Dis- 168:27 ease being a belief, a latent illusion of mortal mind, the sensation would not appear if the error of belief was met and destroyed by truth.

Changed mentality

168:30 Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter, - chemicalization. By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal 169:1 mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.

Scientific foresight

169:3 Whenever an aggravation of symptoms has occurred through mental chemicalization, I have seen the mental signs, assuring me that danger was over, before 169:6 the patient felt the change; and I have said to the patient, "You are healed," - sometimes to his dis- comfiture, when he was incredulous. But it always came 169:9 about as I had foretold.

I name these facts to show that disease has a mental, mortal origin, - that faith in rules of health or in drugs 169:12 begets and fosters disease by attracting the mind to the subject of sickness, by exciting fear of disease, and by dos- ing the body in order to avoid it. The faith reposed in 169:15 these things should find stronger supports and a higher home. If we understood the control of Mind over body, we should put no faith in material means.

Mind the only healer

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 God, 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 lust 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 illustrated 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- stitutes his happiness or misery.

Godless 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 passes 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 passed 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."

Identity 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) constitutes 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 pass 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 God, 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 practitioners 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 constitutions 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 God, 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.

Pulmonary misbeliefs

Damp atmosphere and freezing snow empurpled the 175:27 plump cheeks of our ancestors, but they never indulged in the refinement of inflamed bronchial tubes. They were as innocent as Adam, before he ate 175:30 the fruit of false knowledge, of the existence of tubercles and troches, lungs and lozenges.

Our modern Eves

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," says 176:1 the English poet, and there is truth in his sentiment. The action of mortal mind on the body was not so injurious 176:3 before inquisitive modern Eves took up the study of medical works and unmanly Adams attributed their own downfall and the fate of their off- 176:6 spring to the weakness of their wives.

The primitive custom of taking no thought about food left the stomach and bowels free to act in obedi- 176:9 ence to nature, and gave the gospel a chance to be seen in its glorious effects upon the body. A ghastly array of diseases was not paraded before the imagination. There 176:12 were fewer books on digestion and more "sermons in stones, and good in everything." When the mechanism of the human mind gives place to the divine Mind, self- 176:15 ishness and sin, disease and death, will lose their foothold.

Human fear of miasma would load with disease the 176:18 air of Eden, and weigh down mankind with superimposed and conjectural evils. Mortal mind is the worst foe of the body, while divine Mind is its best friend.

Diseases not to be classified

176:21 Should all cases of organic disease be treated by a regular practitioner, and the Christian Scientist try truth only in cases of hysteria, hypochon- 176:24 dria, and hallucination? One disease is no more real than another. All disease is the result of education, and disease can carry its ill-effects 176:27 no farther than mortal mind maps out the way. The human mind, not matter, is supposed to feel, suffer, en- joy. Hence decided types of acute disease are quite as 176:30 ready to yield to Truth as the less distinct type and chronic form of disease. Truth handles the most malignant con- tagion with perfect assurance.

One basis for all sickness

177:1 Human mind produces what is termed organic dis- ease as certainly as it produces hysteria, and it must re- 177:3 linquish all its errors, sicknesses, and sins. I have demonstrated this beyond all cavil. The evidence of divine Mind's healing power and abso- 177:6 lute control is to me as certain as the evidence of my own existence.

Mental and physical oneness

Mortal mind and body are one. Neither exists without 177:9 the other, and both must be destroyed by immortal Mind. Matter, or body, is but a false concept of mor- tal mind. This so-called mind builds its own 177:12 superstructure, of which the material body is the grosser portion; but from first to last, the body is a sensuous, human concept.

The effect of names

177:15 In the Scriptural allegory of the material creation, Adam or error, which represents the erroneous theory of life and intelligence in matter, had the 177:18 naming of all that was material. These names indicated matter's properties, qualities, and forms. But a lie, the opposite of Truth, cannot name the qualities and 177:21 effects of what is termed matter, and create the so-called laws of the flesh, nor can a lie hold the preponderance of power in any direction against God, Spirit and 177:24 Truth.

Poison defined mentally

If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient dies even though physician and 177:27 patient are expecting favorable results, does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally 177:30 taken.

In such cases a few persons believe the potion swal- lowed by the patient to be harmless, but the vast ma- 178:1 jority of mankind, though they know nothing of this par- ticular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, 178:3 the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poi- sonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind. Consequently, the result is controlled by the majority of 178:6 opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick-chamber.

Heredity is not a law. The remote cause or belief 178:9 of disease is not dangerous because of its priority and the connection of past mortal thoughts with present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are 178:12 mental.

Perhaps an adult has a deformity produced prior to his birth by the fright of his mother. When wrested from 178:15 human belief and based on Science or the divine Mind, to which all things are possible, that chronic case is not difficult to cure.

Animal magnetism destroyed

178:18 Mortal mind, acting from the basis of sensation in matter, is animal magnetism; but this so-called mind, from which comes all evil, contradicts itself, 178:21 and must finally yield to the eternal Truth, or the divine Mind, expressed in Science. In pro- portion to our understanding of Christian Science, we are 178:24 freed from the belief of heredity, of mind in matter or ani- mal magnetism; and we disarm sin of its imaginary power in proportion to our spiritual understanding of the status 178:27 of immortal being.

Ignorant of the methods and the basis of metaphysical healing, you may attempt to unite with it hypnotism, 178:30 spiritualism, electricity; but none of these methods can be mingled with metaphysical healing.

Whoever reaches the understanding of Christian Science 179:1 in its proper signification will perform the sudden cures of which it is capable; but this can be done only by 179:3 taking up the cross and following Christ in the daily life.

Absent patients

Science can heal the sick, who are absent from their 179:6 healers, as well as those present, since space is no ob- stacle to Mind. Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen; but the spiritual capacity to ap- 179:9 prehend thought and to heal by the Truth-power, is won only as man is found, not in self-righteousness, but re- flecting the divine nature.

Horses mistaught

179:12 Every medical method has its advocates. The prefer- ence of mortal mind for a certain method creates a demand for that method, and the body then seems to re- 179:15 quire such treatment. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket, whereas the wild animal, left to his 179:18 instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. The epizootic is a humanly evolved ailment, which a wild horse might never have.

Medical works objectionable

179:21 Treatises on anatomy, physiology, and health, sustained by what is termed material law, are the pro- moters of sickness and disease. It should not 179:24 be proverbial, that so long as you read medical works you will be sick.

The sedulous matron - studying her Jahr with homoe- 179:27 opathic pellet and powder in hand, ready to put you into a sweat, to move the bowels, or to produce sleep - is unwittingly sowing the seeds of reliance on matter, 179:30 and her household may erelong reap the effect of this mistake.

Descriptions of disease given by physicians and adver- 180:1 tisements of quackery are both prolific sources of sickness. As mortal mind is the husbandman of error, it should be 180:3 taught to do the body no harm and to uproot its false sowing.

The invalid's outlook

The patient sufferer tries to be satisfied when he sees 180:6 his would-be healers busy, and his faith in their efforts is somewhat helpful to them and to himself; but in Science one must understand the resusci- 180:9 tating law of Life. This is the seed within itself bearing fruit after its kind, spoken of in Genesis.

Physicians should not deport themselves as if Mind 180:12 were non-existent, nor take the ground that all causation is matter, instead of Mind. Ignorant that the human mind governs the body, its phenomenon, the invalid may 180:15 unwittingly add more fear to the mental reservoir already overflowing with that emotion.

Wrong and right way

Doctors should not implant disease in the thoughts of 180:18 their patients, as they so frequently do, by declaring dis- ease to be a fixed fact, even before they go to work to eradicate the disease through the ma- 180:21 terial faith which they inspire. Instead of furnishing thought with fear, they should try to correct this turbulent element of mortal mind by the influence of divine Love 180:24 which casteth out fear.

When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with 180:27 God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ 180:30 Jesus. The important decision

To reduce inflammation, dissolve a tumor, or cure or- ganic disease, I have found divine Truth more potent than 181:1 all lower remedies. And why not, since Mind, God, is the source and condition of all existence? Before decid- 181:3 ing that the body, matter, is disordered, one should ask, "Who art thou that repliest to Spirit? Can matter speak for itself, or does 181:6 it hold the issues of life?" Matter, which can neither suffer nor enjoy, has no partnership with pain and pleas- ure, but mortal belief has such a partnership.

Manipulation unscientific

181:9 When you manipulate patients, you trust in electricity and magnetism more than in Truth; and for that reason, you employ matter rather than 181:12 Mind. You weaken or destroy your power when you re- sort to any except spiritual means.

It is foolish to declare that you manipulate patients but 181:15 that you lay no stress on manipulation. If this be so, why manipulate? In reality you manipulate because you are ignorant of the baneful effects of magnetism, or are not 181:18 sufficiently spiritual to depend on Spirit. In either case you must improve your mental condition till you finally attain the understanding of Christian Science.

Not words but deeds

181:21 If you are too material to love the Science of Mind and are satisfied with good words instead of effects, if you adhere to error and are afraid to trust Truth, 181:24 the question then recurs, "Adam, where art thou?" It is unnecessary to resort to aught besides Mind in order to satisfy the sick that you are doing some- 181:27 thing for them, for if they are cured, they generally know it and are satisfied.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." 181:30 If you have more faith in drugs than in Truth, this faith will incline you to the side of matter and error. Any hypnotic power you may exercise will diminish your 182:1 ability to become a Scientist, and vice versa. The act of healing the sick through divine Mind alone, of casting 182:3 out error with Truth, shows your position as a Christian Scientist.

Physiology or Spirit

The demands of God appeal to thought only; but the 182:6 claims of mortality, and what are termed laws of nature, appertain to matter. Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate and capable of producing 182:9 the highest human good? We cannot obey both physi- ology and Spirit, for one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections. 182:12 It is impossible to work from two standpoints. If we attempt it, we shall presently "hold to the one, and despise the other."

182:15 The hypotheses of mortals are antagonistic to Science and cannot mix with it. This is clear to those, who heal the sick on the basis of Science.

No material law

182:18 Mind's government of the body must supersede the so- called laws of matter. Obedience to material law pre- vents full obedience to spiritual law, - the law 182:21 which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind. Mortals entreat the di- vine Mind to heal the sick, and forthwith shut out the aid 182:24 of Mind by using material means, thus working against themselves and their prayers and denying man's God- given ability to demonstrate Mind's sacred power. Pleas 182:27 for drugs and laws of health come from some sad incident, or else from ignorance of Christian Science and its tran- scendent power.

182:30 To admit that sickness is a condition over which God has no control, is to presuppose that omnipotent power is powerless on some occasions. The law of Christ, or 183:1 Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit; but the so- called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and 183:3 demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one God, one lawmaker. To suppose that God constitutes laws of inharmony is a mistake; dis- 183:6 cords have no support from nature or divine law, however much is said to the contrary.

Can the agriculturist, according to belief, produce a 183:9 crop without sowing the seed and awaiting its germina- tion according to the laws of nature? The answer is no, and yet the Scriptures inform us that sin, or error, first 183:12 caused the condemnation of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity. Truth never made error necessary, nor devised a law to 183:15 perpetuate error.

Laws of nature spiritual

The supposed laws which result in weariness and dis- ease are not His laws, for the legitimate and only possible 183:18 action of Truth is the production of harmony. Laws of nature are laws of Spirit; but mortals commonly recognize as law that which hides the power of 183:21 Spirit. Divine Mind rightly demands man's entire obe- dience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made for any lesser loyalty. Obedience to Truth gives man 183:24 power and strength. Submission to error superinduces loss of power.

Belief and understanding

Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods 183:27 with the actual spiritual law, - the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If Christian 183:30 Science dishonors human belief, it honors spir- itual understanding; and the one Mind only is entitled to honor.

184:1 The so-called laws of health are simply laws of mortal belief. The premises being erroneous, the conclusions 184:3 are wrong. Truth makes no laws to regulate sickness, sin, and death, for these are unknown to Truth and should not be recognized as reality.

184:6 Belief produces the results of belief, and the penal- ties it affixes last so long as the belief and are insepara- ble from it. The remedy consists in probing the trouble 184:9 to the bottom, in finding and casting out by denial the error of belief which produces a mortal disorder, never honoring erroneous belief with the title of law nor yield- 184:12 ing obedience to it. Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine 184:15 statutes.

Laws of human belief

Controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmoni- ous and eternal. Whatever is governed by a false belief 184:18 is discordant and mortal. We say man suffers from the effects of cold, heat, fatigue. This is human belief, not the truth of being, for matter cannot 184:21 suffer. Mortal mind alone suffers, - not because a law of matter has been transgressed, but because a law of this so-called mind has been disobeyed. I have demonstrated 184:24 this as a rule of divine Science by destroying the delusion of suffering from what is termed a fatally broken physical law.

184:27 A woman, whom I cured of consumption, always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east. I sat silently by her side a few moments. Her 184:30 breath came gently. The inspirations were deep and nat- ural. I then requested her to look at the weather-vane. She looked and saw that it pointed due east. The wind 185:1 had not changed, but her thought of it had and so her diffi- culty in breathing had gone. The wind had not produced 185:3 the difficulty. My metaphysical treatment changed the action of her belief on the lungs, and she never suffered again from east winds, but was restored to health.

A so-called mind-cure

185:6 No system of hygiene but Christian Science is purely mental. Before this book was published, other books were in circulation, which discussed "mental 185:9 medicine" and "mind-cure," operating through the power of the earth's magnetic currents to regulate life and health. Such theories and such systems of so-called 185:12 mind-cure, which have sprung up, are as material as the prevailing systems of medicine. They have their birth in mortal mind, which puts forth a human conception 185:15 in the name of Science to match the divine Science of im- mortal Mind, even as the necromancers of Egypt strove to emulate the wonders wrought by Moses. Such theories 185:18 have no relationship to Christian Science, which rests on the conception of God as the only Life, substance, and intelligence, and excludes the human mind as a spiritual 185:21 factor in the healing work.

Jesus and hypnotism

Jesus cast out evil and healed the sick, not only with- out drugs, but without hypnotism, which is 185:24 the reverse of ethical and pathological Truth- power.

Erroneous mental practice may seem for a time to bene- 185:27 fit the sick, but the recovery is not permanent. This is because erroneous methods act on and through the ma- terial stratum of the human mind, called brain, which is 185:30 but a mortal consolidation of material mentality and its suppositional activities.

False stimulus

A patient under the influence of mortal mind is healed 186:1 only by removing the influence on him of this mind, by emptying his thought of the false stimulus 186:3 and reaction of will-power and filling it with the divine energies of Truth.

Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the 186:6 understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil under whatever name or pretence they are em- 186:9 ployed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, cannot mingle.

Evil negative and self-destructive

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. 186:12 It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. 186:15 Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil.

Evil is self-assertive. It says: "I am a real entity, over- 186:18 mastering good." This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of good. Every attempt of evil 186:21 to destroy good is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily punishing the evil-doer. If we concede the same reality to discord as to harmony, discord has as lasting a claim upon 186:24 us as has harmony. If evil is as real as good, evil is also as immortal. If death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth. If pain is as real as the absence of pain, both must be im- 186:27 mortal; and if so, harmony cannot be the law of being.

Ignorant idolatry

Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be self-deceived. If mortal mind knew how to be better, it 186:30 would be better. Since it must believe in some- thing besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity. The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning, 187:1 having other gods and believing in more than the one Mind.

187:3 As mortals do not comprehend even mortal existence, how ignorant must they be of the all-knowing Mind and of His creations.

187:6 Here you may see how so-called material sense creates its own forms of thought, gives them material names, and then worships and fears them. With pagan blindness, 187:9 it attributes to some material god or medicine an ability beyond itself. The beliefs of the human mind rob and enslave it, and then impute this result to another illusive 187:12 personification, named Satan.

Action of mortal mind

The valves of the heart, opening and closing for the pas- sage of the blood, obey the mandate of mor- 187:15 tal mind as directly as does the hand, ad- mittedly moved by the will. Anatomy allows the mental cause of the latter action, but not of the former.

187:18 We say, "My hand hath done it." What is this my but mortal mind, the cause of all materialistic action? All voluntary, as well as miscalled involuntary, action of the 187:21 mortal body is governed by this so-called mind, not by matter. There is no involuntary action. The divine Mind includes all action and volition, and man in Science is gov- 187:24 erned by this Mind. The human mind tries to classify action as voluntary and involuntary, and suffers from the attempt. Death and the body

187:27 If you take away this erring mind, the mortal material body loses all appearance of life or action, and this so- called mind then calls itself dead; but the hu- 187:30 man mind still holds in belief a body, through which it acts and which appears to the human mind to live, - a body like the one it had before death. This body 188:1 is put off only as the mortal, erring mind yields to God, immortal Mind, and man is found in His image.

Embryonic sinful thoughts

188:3 What is termed disease does not exist. It is neither mind nor matter. The belief of sin, which has grown terrible in strength and influence, is an uncon- 188:6 scious error in the beginning, - an embryonic thought without motive; but afterwards it governs the so-called man. Passion, depraved appetites, 188:9 dishonesty, envy, hatred, revenge ripen into action, only to pass from shame and woe to their final punishment.

Disease a dream

Mortal existence is a dream of pain and pleasure in 188:12 matter, a dream of sin, sickness, and death; and it is like the dream we have in sleep, in which every one recognizes his condition to be wholly a state of 188:15 mind. In both the waking, and the sleeping dream, the dreamer thinks that his body is material and the suffering is in that body.

188:18 The smile of the sleeper indicates the sensation pro- duced physically by the pleasure of a dream. In the same way pain and pleasure, sickness and care, are 188:21 traced upon mortals by unmistakable signs.

Sickness is a growth of error, springing from mortal ignorance or fear. Error rehearses error. What causes 188:24 disease cannot cure it. The soil of disease is mortal mind, and you have an abundant or scanty crop of disease, according to the seedlings of fear. Sin and the fear of 188:27 disease must be uprooted and cast out.

Sense yields to understanding

When darkness comes over the earth, the physical senses have no immediate evidence of a sun. 188:30 The human eye knows not where the orb of day is, nor if it exists. Astronomy gives the desired information regarding the sun. The human or 189:1 material senses yield to the authority of this science, and they are willing to leave with astronomy the explanation of 189:3 the sun's influence over the earth. If the eyes see no sun for a week, we still believe that there is solar light and heat. Science (in this instance named natural) raises 189:6 the human thought above the cruder theories of the human mind, and casts out a fear.

In like manner mortals should no more deny the power 189:9 of Christian Science to establish harmony and to explain the effect of mortal mind on the body, though the cause be unseen, than they should deny the existence of the sun- 189:12 light when the orb of day disappears, or doubt that the sun will reappear. The sins of others should not make good men suffer.

Ascending the scale

189:15 We call the body material; but it is as truly mortal mind, according to its degree, as is the material brain which is supposed to furnish the evidence 189:18 of all mortal thought or things. The human mortal mind, by an inevitable perversion, makes all things start from the lowest instead of from the highest 189:21 mortal thought. The reverse is the case with all the formations of the immortal divine Mind. They proceed from the divine source; and so, in tracing them, we con- 189:24 stantly ascend in infinite being.

Human reproduction

From mortal mind comes the reproduction of the species, - first the belief of inanimate, and then of ani- 189:27 mate matter. According to mortal thought, the development of embryonic mortal mind commences in the lower, basal portion of the brain, and 189:30 goes on in an ascending scale by evolution, keeping always in the direct line of matter, for matter is the subjective condition of mortal mind.

190:1 Next we have the formation of so-called embryonic mortal mind, afterwards mortal men or mortals, - all this 190:3 while matter is a belief, ignorant of itself, ignorant of what it is supposed to produce. The mortal says that an inani- mate unconscious seedling is producing mortals, both body 190:6 and mind; and yet neither a mortal mind nor the immortal Mind is found in brain or elsewhere in matter or in mortals.

Human stature

This embryonic and materialistic human belief called 190:9 mortal man in turn fills itself with thoughts of pain and pleasure, of life and death, and arranges itself into five so-called senses, which presently 190:12 measure mind by the size of a brain and the bulk of a body, called man.

Human frailty

Human birth, growth, maturity, and decay are as the 190:15 grass springing from the soil with beautiful green blades, afterwards to wither and return to its native nothingness. This mortal seeming is temporal; 190:18 it never merges into immortal being, but finally disap- pears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found to be the real man. 190:21 The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts, thus swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:

As for man, his days are as grass: 190:24 As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more.

190:27 When hope rose higher in the human heart, he sang:

As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. . . . . . 190:30 For with Thee is the fountain of life; In Thy light shall we see light.

191:1 The brain can give no idea of God's man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infi- 191:3 nite Mind.

As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God's likeness will 191:6 appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element.

The immortal birth

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a 191:9 misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to "where the young child was," 191:12 - even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, 191:15 chasing away the darkness of error.

Spiritual freedom

The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage. It should no longer 191:18 ask of the head, heart, or lungs: What are man's prospects for life? Mind is not helpless. Intelli- gence is not mute before non-intelligence.

191:21 By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not a spray buds within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell.

191:24 The Science of being reveals man and immortality as based on Spirit. Physical sense defines mortal man as based on matter, and from this premise infers the mor- 191:27 tality of the body.

No physical affinity

The illusive senses may fancy affinities with their op- posites; but in Christian Science, Truth never mingles 191:30 with error. Mind has no affinity with matter, and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills of the flesh. Mind, God, sends forth the aroma of Spirit, 192:1 the atmosphere of intelligence. The belief that a pulpy substance under the skull is mind is a mockery of intelli- 192:3 gence, a mimicry of Mind.

We are Christian Scientists, only as we quit our reliance upon that which is false and grasp the true. We are not 192:6 Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ. Human opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, 192:9 and from the mortal instead of from the immortal. Spirit is not separate from God. Spirit is God.

Human power a blind force

Erring power is a material belief, a blind miscalled force, 192:12 the offspring of will and not of wisdom, of the mortal mind and not of the immortal. It is the headlong cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest's 192:15 breath. It is lightning and hurricane, all that is selfish, wicked, dishonest, and impure.

The one real power

Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds 192:18 the "wind in His fists;" and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physi- 192:21 cal senses must give up their false testimony. Your in- fluence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you 192:24 the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.

192:27 We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by follow- ing the example of our Master in the understanding of divine metaphysics. Christianity is the basis of true heal- 192:30 ing. Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.

Mind cures hip-disease

I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been 193:1 confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. On enter- 193:3 ing the house I met his physician, who said that the patient was dying. The physician had just probed the ulcer on the hip, and said the bone was carious 193:6 for several inches. He even showed me the probe, which had on it the evidence of this condition of the bone. The doctor went out. Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and 193:9 sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids 193:12 closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and said: "I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone." 193:15 It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon when this took place.

I told him to rise, dress himself, and take supper with 193:18 his family. He did so. The next day I saw him in the yard. Since then I have not seen him, but am informed that he went to work in two weeks. The discharge from 193:21 the sore stopped, and the sore was healed. The diseased condition had continued there ever since the injury was received in boyhood. 193:24 Since his recovery I have been informed that his physi- cian claims to have cured him, and that his mother has been threatened with incarceration in an insane asylum 193:27 for saying: "It was none other than God and that woman who healed him." I cannot attest the truth of that report, but what I saw and did for that man, and what 193:30 his physician said of the case, occurred just as I have narrated.

It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God 194:1 and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will. Review- 194:3 ing this brief experience, I cannot fail to discern the coincidence of the spiritual idea of man with the divine Mind.

Change of belief

194:6 A change in human belief changes all the physical symp- toms, and determines a case for better or for worse. When one's false belief is corrected 194:9 Truth sends a report of health over the body.

Destruction of the auditory nerve and paralysis of the optic nerve are not necessary to ensure deafness and blind- 194:12 ness; for if mortal mind says, "I am deaf and blind," it will be so without an injured nerve. Every theory op- posed to this fact (as I learned in metaphysics) would 194:15 presuppose man, who is immortal in spiritual under- standing, a mortal in material belief.

Power of habit

The authentic history of Kaspar Hauser is a useful hint 194:18 as to the frailty and inadequacy of mortal mind. It proves beyond a doubt that education consti- tutes this so-called mind, and that, in turn, 194:21 mortal mind manifests itself in the body by the false sense it imparts. Incarcerated in a dungeon, where neither sight nor sound could reach him, at the age of 194:24 seventeen Kaspar was still a mental infant, crying and chattering with no more intelligence than a babe, and realizing Tennyson's description:

194:27 An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.

194:30 His case proves material sense to be but a belief formed by education alone. The light which affords us joy gave 195:1 him a belief of intense pain. His eyes were inflamed by the light. After the babbling boy had been taught to 195:3 speak a few words, he asked to be taken back to his dun- geon, and said that he should never be happy elsewhere. Outside of dismal darkness and cold silence he found no 195:6 peace. Every sound convulsed him with anguish. All that he ate, except his black crust, produced violent retchings. All that gives pleasure to our educated senses 195:9 gave him pain through those very senses, trained in an opposite direction.

Useful knowledge

The point for each one to decide is, whether it is mortal 195:12 mind or immortal Mind that is causative. We should forsake the basis of matter for meta- physical Science and its divine Principle.

195:15 Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through as- tronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, 195:18 thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.

Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observa- tion, invention, study, and original thought are expansive 195:21 and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of it- self, out of all that is mortal.

It is the tangled barbarisms of learning which we 195:24 deplore, - the mere dogma, the speculative theory, the nauseous fiction. Novels, remarkable only for their exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens 195:27 of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes and sentiments. Literary commercialism is lowering the intellectual standard to accommodate the purse and to 195:30 meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of for improvement. Incorrect views lower the standard of truth.

196:1 If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom. It is but a blind force. Man has "sought out many inven- 196:3 tions," but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge. The power of mortal mind over its own body is little understood.

Sin destroyed through suffering

196:6 Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate this dream. Sin 196:9 alone brings death, for sin is the only element of destruction.

"Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body 196:12 in hell," said Jesus. A careful study of this text allows that here the word soul means a false sense or material consciousness. The command was a warning to beware, 196:15 not of Rome, Satan, nor of God, but of sin. Sickness, sin, and death are not concomitants of Life or Truth. No law supports them. They have no relation to God 196:18 wherewith to establish their power. Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven.

Dangerous shoals avoided

Such books as will rule disease out of mortal mind, - 196:21 and so efface the images and thoughts of dis- ease, instead of impressing them with forcible descriptions and medical details, - will help 196:24 to abate sickness and to destroy it.

Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single post mortem examination, - not from infection nor from 196:27 contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the 196:30 body.

Pangs caused by the press

The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giv- 197:1 ing names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A 197:3 new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it. A minutely described dis- 197:6 ease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not ex- ceed the original cost. God said of the tree of knowledge, 197:9 which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Higher standard for mortals

The less that is said of physical structure and laws, and 197:12 the more that is thought and said about moral and spiritual law, the higher will be the stand- ard of living and the farther mortals will be re- 197:15 moved from imbecility or disease.

We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. It was the ignorance of our forefathers in the departments 197:18 of knowledge now broadcast in the earth, that made them hardier than our trained physiologists, more honest than our sleek politicians.

Diet and dyspepsia

197:21 We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate helped to make them healthy, but that is a mistake. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this 197:24 period. With rules of health in the head and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would still be dyspeptics. Many of the effeminate constitutions 197:27 of our time will never grow robust until individual opin- ions improve and mortal belief loses some portion of its error.