Science and Health
by Mary Baker Glover
Chapter I - Natural Science

 

40:1
less, unerring and immortal. Soul is Spirit and Spirit
the only substance, insomuch as it is the Principle of
man, and the universe. To regard matter a law of
itself, or produced by Intelligence is error. Matter is
change, decay, and death, and Principle is not in decay,
Life is not in death, Soul is not in body. God is not
in the things He hath made, and all that he hath made
is "good." If Soul was in body, Spirit and matter
were one; but Soul is not personal sense, and vice versa.
God is the Principle, or Soul of all that is real, and
nothing is real that does not express Him and is con-
trolled by Him, and immortal. Soul is lost sight of by
personal sense, but cannot be lost in science. There is
neither growth, maturity, nor decay to Soul: these are
the mutations of sense, the clouds before Soul that we
call substance, but they are only vapor. Metaphysically
speaking, a belief of Life in matter is what might be
termed a loss of Soul; for seeking Life and happiness
in error, we lose sight of Truth. The idea of God, is
the heaven, earth, and immortal man that is unerring,
and eternal, because they are controlled by Principle,
that is, by Soul, and not sense, by understanding and
not belief. That which is mortal, is a dream of Life,
Intelligence and substance in matter; a belief that idea
creates Principle, and shadow substance! In this error
Truth is lost; in other words, error loses sight of Soul
or the Principle of man, and a belief of intelligent mat-
ter takes the place of the science of man. Soul is self‑
existent, the forever "I am," that enters not into sin
and mortality. The parent of all discord is this strange
hypothesis, that Soul is in body, and Life in matter;
this error spreads its table with sickness, sin and death,
41:1
and partakes of its own bounty. In the resurrection of
understanding, Life, Soul, and substance will be recog-
nized one and outside of matter, and the Intelligence of
all that is immortal. The idea of Life is embraced in
Soul and not sense, in the immortal and not the mortal.
41:6
The most scientific man of whom we have any record,
Jesus of Nazareth, called the mortal body that we sup-
pose substance, "ghost"; and his body that others called
spirit, "flesh and bones"; showing that substance to his
understanding was the deathless Principle that em-
braces man and is forever inseparable from Soul. But
the Jews, strongly material, called the real idea of God,
even the body that was not matter, a spirit or ghost;
and the body they laid in a sepulchre, substance. By
this error they lost logic and Truth, therefore lost sight
of Jesus at the very moment when he presented more
than ever the real idea of God, and because of this be-
lief, the idea was taken from them. The higher he
wrought the problem of being through spiritual science,
the more odious he became to the materialistic world
that understood him not. Life, Intelligence and sub-
stance to them were matter, but to him they were God,
the Truth of man; therefore he reckoned himself not
matter but Spirit; not sense, but Soul. Said he, "Spirit
hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have," but this
he said three days after his burial, before relinquishing
the belief of substance-matter; after that, his disciples
even could not see him. Jesus said, "I and the Father
are one," and this separated him from theology and the
Rabbis: understanding himself Soul instead of body,
and that Soul was God, brought down upon him the
anathemas of a world. This statement of himself un-
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