Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter VIII - Footsteps Of Truth

 

Spiritual ignorance
252:1
They are at war with Science, and as our Master said,
"If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom
cannot stand."
252:4
Human ignorance of Mind and of the recuperative
energies of Truth occasions the only skepticism regard-
ing the pathology and theology of Christian Science.
Eternal man recognized
252:7
When false human beliefs learn even a little of their
own falsity, they begin to disappear. A knowledge of
error and of its operations must precede that
understanding of Truth which destroys error,
until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears,
and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit,
is understood and recognized as the true likeness of his
Maker.
252:15
The false evidence of material sense contrasts strikingly
with the testimony of Spirit. Material sense lifts its voice
with the arrogance of reality and says:
Testimony of sense
252:18
I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can
cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude
detection by smooth-tongued villainy. Ani-
mal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment,
fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short span
of life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How
sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The world
is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness
of matter. But a touch, an accident, the law of God,
may at any moment annihilate my peace, for all my
fancied joys are fatal. Like bursting lava, I expand but
to my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of
consuming fire.
252:31
Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith:
Testimony of Soul
252:32
I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my
253:1
likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am
Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being,
imperishable glory, – all are Mine, for I am
God. I give immortality to man, for I am
Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love.
I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am
Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am
the substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.
Heaven-bestowed prerogative
253:9
I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the under-
standing of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed har-
mony, – that, as you read, you see there is no
cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense
which is not power) able to make you sick or
sinful; and I hope that you are conquering this false sense.
Knowing the falsity of so-called material sense, you can
assert your prerogative to overcome the belief in sin, dis-
ease, or death.
Right endeavor possible
253:18
If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you
can at once change your course and do right. Matter can
make no opposition to right endeavors against
sin or sickness, for matter is inert, mindless.
Also, if you believe yourself diseased, you can
alter this wrong belief and action without hindrance from
the body.
253:25
Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, dis-
ease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God
never requires obedience to a so-called material law, for
no such law exists. The belief in sin and death is de-
stroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life in-
stead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit
instead of the flesh.
Patience and final perfection
253:32
The divine demand, "Be ye therefore perfect," is sci-
254:1
entific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are
indispensable. Individuals are consistent who, watching
and praying, can "run, and not be weary; . . .
walk, and not faint," who gain good rapidly
and hold their position, or attain slowly and
yield not to discouragement. God requires perfection,
but not until the battle between Spirit and flesh is fought
and the victory won. To stop eating, drinking, or being
clothed materially before the spiritual facts of existence
are gained step by step, is not legitimate. When we wait
patiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs
our path. Imperfect mortals grasp the ultimate of spir-
itual perfection slowly; but to begin aright and to con-
tinue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of
being, is doing much.
254:16
During the sensual ages, absolute Christian Science
may not be achieved prior to the change called death,
for we have not the power to demonstrate what we do
not understand. But the human self must be evangel-
ized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly
to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material,
and to work out the spiritual which determines the out-
ward and actual.
254:24
If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are
in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters?
What is there to strip off error's disguise?
The cross and crown
254:27
If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but
healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms.
Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the
cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it
you win and wear the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy home
is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.
Chapter IX
Creation
Thy throne is established of old:
Thou art from everlasting. – PSALMS.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have
the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. – PAUL.
Inadequate theories of creation
255:1
ETERNAL Truth is changing the universe. As mor-
tals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought
expands into expression. "Let there be light,"
is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love,
changing chaos into order and discord into the
music of the spheres. The mythical human theories of
creation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprang
from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they
afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by
the divine Mind.
Finite views of Deity
255:11
Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to be-
little Deity with human conceptions. In league
with material sense, mortals take limited views
of all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man
should affirm.
255:16
The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot be
made the basis of any true idea of the infinite Godhead.
Eye hath not seen Spirit, nor hath ear heard His voice.
No material creation
256:1
Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must
yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of ac-
tion, thought rises from the material sense to
the spiritual, from the scholastic to the in-
spirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All
things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the
creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and
Mother of the universe, including man.
Tritheism impossible
256:9
The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a per-
sonal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polythe-
ism, rather than the one ever-present I AM.
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
No divine corporeality
256:13
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed
within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can
He be understood aright through mortal con-
cepts. The precise form of God must be of
small importance in comparison with the sublime ques-
tion, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?
256:19
Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, in
the language of Scripture, "doeth according to His will
in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him,
What doest Thou?"
256:24
No form nor physical combination is adequate to rep-
resent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God
leads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit of
Christianity.
Limitless Mind
256:28
A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical limita-
tions. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vast-
ness of infinity. A mind originating from a
finite or material source must be limited and
finite. Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the
257:1
infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind. If
Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind;
and this definition is scientific.
Matter is not substance
257:4
If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit, matter's
unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce
substance. The theory that Spirit is not the
only substance and creator is pantheistic het-
erodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is
the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soul
governed by the body and a mind in matter. This be-
lief is shallow pantheism.
257:12
Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the sub-
stance of an idea is very far from being the supposed sub-
stance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind
is not the father of matter. The material senses and
human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into
material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic
God, instead of infinite Principle, – in other words, divine
Love, – is the father of the rain, "who hath begotten the
drops of dew," who bringeth "forth Mazzaroth in his sea-
son," and guideth "Arcturus with his sons."
Inexhaustible divine Love
257:22
Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thus
proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the
antipode of Mind. Who hath found finite life
or love sufficient to meet the demands of human
want and woe, – to still the desires, to satisfy the aspira-
tions? Infinite Mind cannot be limited to a finite form,
or Mind would lose its infinite character as inexhaustible
Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth.
Infinite physique impossible
257:30
It would require an infinite form to contain infinite
Mind. Indeed, the phrase infinite form involves a con-
tradiction of terms. Finite man cannot be the image and
258:1
likeness of the infinite God. A mortal, corporeal, or
finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of
limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence
the unsatisfied human craving for something
better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a
material belief in a physical God and man. The insuffi-
ciency of this belief to supply the true idea proves the
falsity of material belief.
Infinity's reflection
258:9
Man is more than a material form with a mind inside,
which must escape from its environments in
order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity,
and this reflection is the true idea of God.
258:13
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever develop-
ing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from
a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in
the infinitude of Truth. We know no more of man as
the true divine image and likeness, than we know of
God.
258:19
The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea
and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses
have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. The
human capacities are enlarged and perfected in propor-
tion as humanity gains the true conception of man and
God.
Individual permanency
258:25
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual
man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him
belongs eternal Life. Never born and
never dying, it were impossible for man, under
the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his
high estate.
God's man discerned
258:31
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of
divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the
259:1
generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and
man cannot lose his individuality, for he re-
flects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, soli-
tary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all
substance.
259:6
In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The
divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who
threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted
their lives higher than their poor thought-models would
allow, – thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick,
sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of
scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Prin-
ciple and idea, – perfect God and perfect man, – as the
basis of thought and demonstration.
The divine image not lost
259:15
If man was once perfect but has now lost his perfection,
then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image
of God. The lost image is no image. The
true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection.
Understanding this, Jesus said: "Be ye there-
fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect."
Immortal models
259:22
Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms
its offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works
spiritually, not materially. Brain or matter
never formed a human concept. Vibration is
not intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal
ideas, pure, perfect, and enduring, are transmitted by
the divine Mind through divine Science, which corrects
error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine
concepts, to the end that they may produce harmonious
results.
259:32
Deducing one's conclusions as to man from imperfec-
260:1
tion instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the
true conception or understanding of man, and make him-
self like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines from
an imperfect model, or the painter can depict the form
and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character
of Judas.
Spiritual discovery
260:7
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give
way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through
many generations human beliefs will be attain-
ing diviner conceptions, and the immortal and
perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as
the only true conception of being.
260:13
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good,
and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already
done; but distrust of one's ability to gain the goodness
desired and to bring out better and higher results, often
hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the
outset.
Requisite change of our ideals
260:19
Mortals must change their ideals in order to improve
their models. A sick body is evolved from
sick thoughts. Sickness, disease, and death
proceed from fear. Sensualism evolves bad
physical and moral conditions.
260:24
Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal
mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, by
conversation about the body, and by the expectation of
perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education
is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array
thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal
nature.
Thoughts are things
260:31
If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for
Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit,
261:1
we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action.
Look away from the body into Truth and Love,
the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and
immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the endur-
ing, the good, and the true, and you will bring these
into your experience proportionably to their occupancy
of your thoughts.
Unreality of pain
261:8
The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is
seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such
absorbed interest as to forget it, the body
experiences no pain. Under the strong im-
pulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor was
accustomed night after night to go upon the stage and
sustain his appointed task, walking about as actively
as the youngest member of the company. This old man
was so lame that he hobbled every day to the theatre, and
sat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, – a signal
which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as if
he had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full pos-
session of his so-called senses.
Immutable identity of man
261:21
Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only
a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning
of God, or good, and the nature of the immu-
table and immortal. Breaking away from the
mutations of time and sense, you will neither
lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own iden-
tity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will
rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird
which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a
skyward flight.
Forgetfulness of self
261:31
We should forget our bodies in remembering good and
the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in
262:1
which to work out the problem of being. Consecration
to good does not lessen man's dependence on God, but
heightens it. Neither does consecration di-
minish man's obligations to God, but shows
the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian
Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but it
ascribes to Him the entire glory. By putting "off the old
man with his deeds," mortals "put on immortality."
262:9
We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God's
creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We
must reverse our feeble flutterings – our efforts to find
life and truth in matter – and rise above the testimony
of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal
idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God‑
like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference
of his being.
The true sense
262:17
Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echo
Job's thought, when the supposed pain and
pleasure of matter cease to predominate. They
will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of
joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly,
working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God.
Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontane-
ously, even as light emits light without effort; for "where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Mind the only cause
262:27
The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of
man's origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Every
concept which seems to begin with the brain
begins falsely. Divine Mind is the only cause
or Principle of existence. Cause does not exist in matter,
in mortal mind, or in physical forms.
Human egotism
263:1
Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be
independent workers, personal authors, and even privi-
leged originators of something which Deity
would not or could not create. The creations
of mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man
alone represents the truth of creation.
Mortal man a mis-creator
263:7
When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence
with the spiritual and works only as God works,
he will no longer grope in the dark and cling
to earth because he has not tasted heaven.
Carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involun-
tary hypocrite, – producing evil when he would create
good, forming deformity when he would outline grace
and beauty, injuring those whom he would bless. He
becomes a general mis-creator, who believes he is a
semi-god. His "touch turns hope to dust, the dust we
all have trod." He might say in Bible language: "The
good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would
not, that I do."
No new creation
263:20
There can be but one creator, who has created all.
Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery
of some distant idea of Truth; else it is a
new multiplication or self-division of mor-
tal thought, as when some finite sense peers from its
cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the
infinite.
263:27
The multiplication of a human and mortal sense of per-
sons and things is not creation. A sensual thought, like
an atom of dust thrown into the face of spiritual im-
mensity, is dense blindness instead of a scientific eternal
consciousness of creation.
Mind's true camera
263:32
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and ma-
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
268:1
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
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