Chapter VII - Physiology
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to matter, and the body that is ours, should be under
to matter, and the body that is ours, should be under
our control; settle the question then, which shall be
master, Soul or body, but do not think to serve both,
for you cannot. Soul, owns man now and forever; let
the owner of man then govern him, and the body will
be harmonious and eternal. Neither a blade of grass
appears, nor a spray buddeth within the vale, nor a leaf
unfolds its fair outlines, nor a flower starts from its
cloistered cell, without the Principle of man, even that
Intelligence which the winds and sea obey, hath done
it; naught but universal Soul, that numbers the very
hairs of our head, and marks the sparrow's fall, can
govern man. Sin, sickness, and death are inharmonies;
they are not identity, action, or being, they are matter‑
beliefs, that appear and disappear, governed alone by
mind, but without the reality or support of law or
Spirit. That God is the law of discord, is morally impos-
sible, or that Wisdom instituted penalties to protect us
from what is without law, except to belief, is again im-
possible. Wisdom never made matter to subdue Spirit;
to say it did is like concluding it made Hades to get
ready for sinners; but there were so many sinners
they had to make their own Hells. God is too pure to
behold iniquity, "in Him was Life," etc.; and har-
mony never produced discord, or Life death. Good-
ness makes its own heaven, sin its own hell, and belief
its own sufferings. A dream seemeth a reality while
it lasts; a falsehood is true to those that believe it,
and sickness is real to such as have it, but mind and
not the body is responsible for it all. Pain and pleas-
ure are mind, not matter; the body has no sensation of
its own. Discord is unreal, harmony is real; admitting
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the same reality to discord we do to harmony, one has
the same reality to discord we do to harmony, one has
as high a claim on confidence and obedience as the
other. If evil is as real as good, error is as real and
immortal as Truth. What we name diseased action is
discord, but harmony is the reality of being; hence the
former is a belief only, and not the Truth of being; if
death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth, and if
pain is as real as the absence of pain, it will be immor-
tal, and harmony is not the order of being. Personal
sense discords, and is therefore a belief only; matter
has no sensation; the action proceeding from Soul is
harmonious and eternal.
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In Mohammedan belief, a pilgrimage to Mecca was
In Mohammedan belief, a pilgrimage to Mecca was
salutary to save man's Soul, and in still another belief,
inanimate matter is able to save man; one is paganism,
the other materia medica. Disease germinates in un-
conscious mind, until it reaches what is termed con-
scious matter, or the body, named personal sense, but
there is no conscious matter; therefore disease is mind
still, named matter; thus the belief of sickness is
developed as a germ, rising above its soil, and we have
a crop abundant or scanty, according to the variety and
strength of soil, the mind full of materia medica, laws
of health, physiology, etc. The diagnosis of disease
helps more than most things to cultivate the seeds of
disease, causing them to take deeper root in the pa-
tient's mind, and to spring up, bearing fruit "after its
own kind." Doctors deport themselves, generally, as
if there was no law of mind; at least, they regard not
this law, or they would sooner administer poison in
matter than mind. They fight disease with matter and
admit it with mind, and this makes it a certain thing.