Chapter 9: 'Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures' by Mary Baker Eddy

Chapter IX - Creation

Mind's true camera

264:1
terial earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind.

They have their day before the permanent facts and their

perfection in Spirit appear. The crude crea-

tions of mortal thought must finally give place

to the glorious forms which we sometimes behold in the

camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is spir-

itual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading,

finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things.

Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm

of Mind? We must look where we would walk, and we

must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we

have our being.

Self-completeness

264:13
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man,

multitudinous objects of creation, which before were

invisible, will become visible. When we

realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of

matter, this understanding will expand into self-com-

pleteness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other

consciousness.

Spiritual proofs of existence

264:20
Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being.

Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sin

is unsustained by Truth, and sickness and

death were overcome by Jesus, who proved

them to be forms of error. Spiritual living

and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can

recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace

which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.

264:28
When we learn the way in Christian Science and rec-

ognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and under-

stand God's creation, – all the glories of earth and heaven

and man.

Godward gravitation

264:32
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings,

265:1
and its government is divine Science. Man is the off-

spring, not of the lowest, but of the highest qualities of

Mind. Man understands spiritual existence

in proportion as his treasures of Truth and

Love are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward,

their affections and aims grow spiritual, – they must near

the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper

sense of the infinite, – in order that sin and mortality

may be put off.

265:10
This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for

Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity

and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man en-

larged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action,

a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent

peace.

Mortal birth and death

265:16
The senses represent birth as untimely and death as

irresistible, as if man were a weed growing apace or a

flower withered by the sun and nipped by

untimely frosts; but this is true only of a

mortal, not of a man in God's image and likeness. The

truth of being is perennial, and the error is unreal and

obsolete.

Blessings from pain

265:23
Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained

stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after

heavenly good comes even before we discover

what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss

of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending

path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform

us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is

spiritual.

Decapitation of error

265:31
The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away

false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections

266:1
from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good,

"rejoicing the heart." Such is the sword of

Science, with which Truth decapitates error,

materiality giving place to man's higher individuality and

destiny.

Uses of adversity

266:6
Would existence without personal friends be to you

a blank? Then the time will come when you will be

solitary, left without sympathy; but this

seeming vacuum is already filled with divine

Love. When this hour of development comes, even if

you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will

force you to accept what best promotes your growth.

Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the

lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for "man's extremity

is God's opportunity." The author has experienced the

foregoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teaches

mortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality.

This is done through self-abnegation. Universal Love

is the divine way in Christian Science.

266:20
The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the

saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite per-

secutions of material sense, aiding evil with evil, would

deceive the very elect.

Beatific presence

266:24
Mortals must follow Jesus' sayings and his demonstra-

tions, which dominate the flesh. Perfect and infinite

Mind enthroned is heaven. The evil beliefs

which originate in mortals are hell. Man is the

idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming

the universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He

is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriers

of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with

God and the universe.

The infinitude of God

267:1
Every object in material thought will be destroyed, but

the spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal.

The offspring of God start not from matter

or ephemeral dust. They are in and of Spirit,

divine Mind, and so forever continue. God is one. The

allness of Deity is His oneness. Generically man is one,

and specifically man means all men.

267:8
It is generally conceded that God is Father, eternal, self‑

created, infinite. If this is so, the forever Father must

have had children prior to Adam. The great I AM made

all "that was made." Hence man and the spiritual uni-

verse coexist with God.

267:13
Christian Scientists understand that, in a religious

sense, they have the same authority for the appellative

mother, as for that of brother and sister. Jesus said:

"For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which

is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and

mother."

Waymarks to eternal Truth

267:19
When examined in the light of divine Science, mortals

present more than is detected upon the surface, since

inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must

be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is bor-

rowed from a higher source than matter, and

by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind,

in which all error disappears in celestial Truth. The

robes of Spirit are "white and glistering," like the raiment

of Christ. Even in this world, therefore, "let thy gar-

ments be always white." "Blessed is the man that en-

dureth [overcometh] temptation: for when he is tried,

[proved faithful], he shall receive the crown of life,

which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

(James i. 12.)

Chapter X

Science Of Being

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we

have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have

handled, of the Word of life, . . . That which we have seen and heard

declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and

truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

– JOHN, First Epistle.

Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen! –

MARTIN LUTHER.

Materialistic challenge

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IN the material world, thought has brought to light

with great rapidity many useful wonders. With

like activity have thought's swift pinions been rising

towards the realm of the real, to the spiritual

cause of those lower things which give im-

pulse to inquiry. Belief in a material basis, from

which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding

to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from

matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Material-

istic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final

combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shep-

herd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with

Goliath.

Confusion confounded

268:14
In this final struggle for supremacy, semi-metaphysi-

cal systems afford no substantial aid to scientific meta-

physics, for their arguments are based on

the false testimony of the material senses as

well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical

269:1
systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pan-

demonium, a house divided against itself.

269:3
From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind

and matter and the mingling of good and evil have re-

sulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demon-

strations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the

unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothing-

ness, of evil.

Divine metaphysics

269:9
Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian

Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter

is truth. Metaphysics is above physics, and

matter does not enter into metaphysical prem-

ises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest

on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves

things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense

for the ideas of Soul.

269:17
These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual

consciousness, and they have this advantage over the ob-

jects and thoughts of material sense, – they are good and

eternal.

Biblical foundations

269:21
The testimony of the material senses is neither abso-

lute nor divine. I therefore plant myself unreservedly

on the teachings of Jesus, of his apostles, of

the prophets, and on the testimony of the

Science of Mind. Other foundations there are none.

All other systems – systems based wholly or partly on

knowledge gained through the material senses – are reeds

shaken by the wind, not houses built on the rock.

Rejected theories

269:29
The theories I combat are these: (1) that all is matter;

(2) that matter originates in Mind, and is as

real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life.

The first theory, that matter is everything, is quite as

270:1
reasonable as the second, that Mind and matter coexist

and cooperate. One only of the following statements can

be true: (1) that everything is matter; (2) that every-

thing is Mind. Which one is it?

270:5
Matter and Mind are opposites. One is contrary to

the other in its very nature and essence; hence both can-

not be real. If one is real, the other must be unreal. Only

by understanding that there is but one power, – not two

powers, matter and Mind, – are scientific and logical

conclusions reached. Few deny the hypothesis that in-

telligence, apart from man and matter, governs the uni-

verse; and it is generally admitted that this intelligence

is the eternal Mind or divine Principle, Love.

Prophetic ignorance

270:14
The prophets of old looked for something higher than

the systems of their times; hence their fore-

sight of the new dispensation of Truth. But

they knew not what would be the precise nature of the

teaching and demonstration of God, divine Mind, in His

more infinite meanings, – the demonstration which was

to destroy sin, sickness, and death, establish the definition

of omnipotence, and maintain the Science of Spirit.

270:22
The pride of priesthood is the prince of this world. It

has nothing in Christ. Meekness and charity have divine

authority. Mortals think wickedly; consequently they

are wicked. They think sickly thoughts, and so become

sick. If sin makes sinners, Truth and Love alone can

unmake them. If a sense of disease produces suffering

and a sense of ease antidotes suffering, disease is mental,

not material. Hence the fact that the human mind alone

suffers, is sick, and that the divine Mind alone heals.

270:31
The life of Christ Jesus was not miraculous, but it was

indigenous to his spirituality, – the good soil wherein the

271:1
seed of Truth springs up and bears much fruit. Christ's

Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing

in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with

the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of

God. Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination

exists in divine Science.

271:7
Jesus instructed his disciples whereby to heal the sick

through Mind instead of matter. He knew that the phi-

losophy, Science, and proof of Christianity were in Truth,

casting out all inharmony.

Studious disciples

271:11
In Latin the word rendered disciple signifies student;

and the word indicates that the power of healing was not

a supernatural gift to those learners, but the

result of their cultivated spiritual understand-

ing of the divine Science, which their Master demonstrated

by healing the sick and sinning. Hence the universal ap-

plication of his saying: "Neither pray I for these alone,

but for them also which shall believe on me [understand

me] through their word."

New Testament basis

271:20
Our Master said, "But the Comforter . . . shall

teach you all things." When the Science of Christianity

appears, it will lead you into all truth. The

Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this

Science, and the eternal life, not the death of Jesus, is

its outcome.

Modern evangel

271:26
Those, who are willing to leave their nets or to cast

them on the right side for Truth, have the opportunity

now, as aforetime, to learn and to practise

Christian healing. The Scriptures contain it.

The spiritual import of the Word imparts this power.

But, as Paul says, "How shall they hear without a

preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be

272:1
sent?" If sent, how shall they preach, convert, and heal

multitudes, except the people hear?

Spirituality of Scripture

272:3
The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before

Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only

as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.

In the soil of an "honest and good heart" the

seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the

swinish element in human nature uproots it. Jesus said:

"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures." The spiritual

sense of the Scriptures brings out the scientific sense, and

is the new tongue referred to in the last chapter of Mark's

Gospel.

272:13
Jesus' parable of "the sower" shows the care our

Master took not to impart to dull ears and gross hearts

the spiritual teachings which dulness and grossness could

not accept. Reading the thoughts of the people, he said:

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast

ye your pearls before swine."

Unspiritual contrasts

272:19
It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization

of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce

of material existence; it is chastity and purity,

in contrast with the downward tendencies

and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity,

which really attest the divine origin and operation of Chris-

tian Science. The triumphs of Christian Science are re-

corded in the destruction of error and evil, from which are

propagated the dismal beliefs of sin, sickness, and death.

God the Principle of all

272:28
The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the

universe. God is the divine Principle of all that repre-

sents Him and of all that really exists. Chris-

tian Science, as demonstrated by Jesus, alone

reveals the natural, divine Principle of Science.

273:1
Matter and its claims of sin, sickness, and death are

contrary to God, and cannot emanate from Him. There

is no material truth. The physical senses can take no

cognizance of God and spiritual Truth. Human belief

has sought out many inventions, but not one of them

can solve the problem of being without the divine Prin-

ciple of divine Science. Deductions from material hy-

potheses are not scientific. They differ from real Science

because they are not based on the divine law.

Science versus sense

273:10
Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the ma-

terial senses, and thus tears away the foun-

dations of error. Hence the enmity between

Science and the senses, and the impossibility

of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense

are eliminated.

273:16
The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have

never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal.

Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the

importance of understanding the truth of being, which

reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

Spiritual law the only law

273:21
God never ordained a material law to annul the spiritual

law. If there were such a material law, it would oppose

the supremacy of Spirit, God, and impugn the

wisdom of the creator. Jesus walked on the

waves, fed the multitude, healed the sick, and raised the

dead in direct opposition to material laws. His acts were

the demonstration of Science, overcoming the false claims

of material sense or law.

Material knowledge illusive

273:29
Science shows that material, conflicting mortal opin-

ions and beliefs emit the effects of error at all times, but

this atmosphere of mortal mind cannot be destructive to

morals and health when it is opposed promptly and per-

274:1
sistently by Christian Science. Truth and Love antidote

this mental miasma, and thus invigorate and sustain ex-

istence. Unnecessary knowledge gained from

the five senses is only temporal, – the concep-

tion of mortal mind, the offspring of sense, not

of Soul, Spirit, – and symbolizes all that is evil and

perishable. Natural science, as it is commonly called, is

not really natural nor scientific, because it is deduced from

the evidence of the material senses. Ideas, on the con-

trary, are born of Spirit, and are not mere inferences

drawn from material premises.

Five senses deceptive

274:12
The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demon-

strate Truth and Life. Hence Christianity and the Sci-

ence which expounds it are based on spiritual

understanding, and they supersede the so‑

called laws of matter. Jesus demonstrated this great

verity. When what we erroneously term the five physical

senses are misdirected, they are simply the manifested

beliefs of mortal mind, which affirm that life, substance,

and intelligence are material, instead of spiritual. These

false beliefs and their products constitute the flesh, and

the flesh wars against Spirit.

Impossible partnership

274:23
Divine Science is absolute, and permits no half-way

position in learning its Principle and rule – establishing

it by demonstration. The conventional firm,

called matter and mind, God never formed.

Science and understanding, governed by the unerring and

eternal Mind, destroy the imaginary copartnership, matter

and mind, formed only to be destroyed in a manner and

at a period as yet unknown. This suppositional partner-

ship is already obsolete, for matter, examined in the light

of divine metaphysics, disappears.

Spirit the starting-point

275:1
Matter has no life to lose, and Spirit never dies. A

partnership of mind with matter would ignore omnipres-

ent and omnipotent Mind. This shows that

matter did not originate in God, Spirit, and is

not eternal. Therefore matter is neither substantial, living,

nor intelligent. The starting-point of divine Science is

that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other

might nor Mind, – that God is Love, and therefore He

is divine Principle.

Divine synonyms

275:10
To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science,

you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle

of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love,

combine as one, – and are the Scriptural names

for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, im-

mortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are

His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite

divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His

wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life

but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.

The divine completeness

275:20
Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understand-

ing, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is

God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,

– that is, all power, all presence, all Science.

Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.

275:25
Our material human theories are destitute of Science.

The true understanding of God is spiritual. It robs the

grave of victory. It destroys the false evidence that mis-

leads thought and points to other gods, or other so-called

powers, such as matter, disease, sin, and death, superior

or contrary to the one Spirit.

275:31
Truth, spiritually discerned, is scientifically understood.

It casts out error and heals the sick.

Universal brotherhood

276:1
Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that

heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, "I

am the Lord that healeth thee," and "I have

found a ransom." When the divine precepts

are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship,

in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have

one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with

the Scriptural command: "Let this Mind be in you,

which was also in Christ Jesus." Man and his Maker

are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness

is cognizant only of the things of God.

276:12
The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings

objects and thoughts into human view in their true light,

and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony

in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is

unreal and mortal.

Perfection requisite

276:17
If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life,

there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death.

When we learn in Science how to be perfect

even as our Father in heaven is perfect,

thought is turned into new and healthy channels, –

towards the contemplation of things immortal and away

from materiality to the Principle of the universe, includ-

ing harmonious man.

276:25
Material beliefs and spiritual understanding never

mingle. The latter destroys the former. Discord is the

nothingness named error. Harmony is the somethingness

named Truth.

Like evolving like

276:29
Nature and revelation inform us that like produces

like. Divine Science does not gather grapes

from thorns nor figs from thistles. Intelli-

gence never produces non-intelligence; but matter is

277:1
ever non-intelligent and therefore cannot spring from

intelligence. To all that is unlike unerring and eternal

Mind, this Mind saith, "Thou shalt surely die;" and else-

where the Scripture says that dust returns to dust. The

non-intelligent relapses into its own unreality. Matter

never produces mind. The immortal never produces the

mortal. Good cannot result in evil. As God Himself is

good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be im-

mortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal

error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirit-

uality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and can-

not be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

277:13
Natural history presents vegetables and animals as

preserving their original species, – like reproducing like.

A mineral is not produced by a vegetable nor the man

by the brute. In reproduction, the order of genus and

species is preserved throughout the entire round of nature.

This points to the spiritual truth and Science of being.

Error relies upon a reversal of this order, asserts that

Spirit produces matter and matter produces all the ills

of flesh, and therefore that good is the origin of evil.

These suppositions contradict even the order of material

so-called science.

Material error

277:24
The realm of the real is Spirit. The unlikeness of Spirit

is matter, and the opposite of the real is not divine, – it is

a human concept. Matter is an error of state-

ment. This error in the premise leads to errors

in the conclusion in every statement into which it enters.

Nothing we can say or believe regarding matter is immor-

tal, for matter is temporal and is therefore a mortal phe-

nomenon, a human concept, sometimes beautiful, always

erroneous.

Substance versus supposition

278:1
Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science re-

veals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter.

Divine metaphysics explains away matter.

Spirit is the only substance and consciousness

recognized by divine Science. The material

senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for

matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even

as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is

a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance‑

matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite,

all. Spirit can have no opposite.

One cause supreme

278:12
That matter is substantial or has life and sensation, is

one of the false beliefs of mortals, and exists only in a

supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence,

as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the

consciousness of matter. The admission that there can

be material substance requires another admission, –

namely, that Spirit is not infinite and that matter is self‑

creative, self-existent, and eternal. From this it would

follow that there are two eternal causes, warring forever

with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme

and all-presence.

278:23
The belief of the eternity of matter contradicts the

demonstration of life as Spirit, and leads to the conclu-

sion that if man is material, he originated in matter and

must return to dust, – logic which would prove his an-

nihilation.

Substance is Spirit

278:28
All that we term sin, sickness, and death is a mortal

belief. We define matter as error, because it is the oppo-

site of life, substance, and intelligence. Mat-

ter, with its mortality, cannot be substantial

if Spirit is substantial and eternal. Which ought to

279:1
be substance to us, – the erring, changing, and dying,

the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable,

and immortal? A New Testament writer plainly de-

scribes faith, a quality of mind, as "the substance of things

hoped for."

Material mortality

279:6
The doom of matter establishes the conclusion that

matter, slime, or protoplasm never originated

in the immortal Mind, and is therefore not

eternal. Matter is neither created by Mind nor for the

manifestation and support of Mind.

Spiritual tangibility

279:11
Ideas are tangible and real to immortal consciousness,

and they have the advantage of being eternal.

Spirit and matter can neither coexist nor co-

operate, and one can no more create the other than

Truth can create error, or vice versa.

279:16
In proportion as the belief disappears that life and in-

telligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of

being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is

in God. Spirit is reached only through the understand-

ing and demonstration of eternal Life and Truth and

Love.

Pantheistic tendencies

279:22
Every system of human philosophy, doctrine, and

medicine is more or less infected with the pantheistic

belief that there is mind in matter; but this

belief contradicts alike revelation and right

reasoning. A logical and scientific conclusion is reached

only through the knowledge that there are not two

bases of being, matter and mind, but one alone, –

Mind.

279:30
Pantheism, starting from a material sense of God,

seeks cause in effect, Principle in its idea, and life and

intelligence in matter.

The things of God are beautiful

280:1
In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown.

Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not prod-

ucts of the infinite, perfect, and eternal All.

From Love and from the light and harmony

which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections

of good can come. All things beautiful and harmless are

ideas of Mind. Mind creates and multiplies them, and

the product must be mental.

280:9
Finite belief can never do justice to Truth in any direc-

tion. Finite belief limits all things, and would compress

Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull bone. Such be-

lief can neither apprehend nor worship the infinite; and

to accommodate its finite sense of the divisibility of Soul

and substance, it seeks to divide the one Spirit into per-

sons and souls.

Belief in many gods

280:16
Through this error, human belief comes to have "gods

many and lords many." Moses declared as Jehovah's

first command of the Ten: "Thou shalt have

no other gods before me!" But behold the

zeal of belief to establish the opposite error of many

minds. The argument of the serpent in the allegory, "Ye

shall be as gods," urges through every avenue the belief

that Soul is in body, and that infinite Spirit, and Life, is

in finite forms.

Sensationless body

280:25
Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient

material form, man has a sensationless body; and God,

the Soul of man and of all existence, being

perpetual in His own individuality, harmony,

and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities

in man, – through Mind, not matter. The only excuse

for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science

of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, – ignorance

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