Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter VI - Science, Theology, Medicine

 

God's allness learned
110:1
presence, omniscience, – Spirit possessing all power,
filling all space, constituting all Science, – contradict
forever the belief that matter can be actual.
These eternal verities reveal primeval exist-
ence as the radiant reality of God's creation,
in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wis-
dom good.
110:8
Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful
unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought
to light another glorious proposition, – man's perfecti-
bility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on
earth.
Scriptural foundations
110:13
In following these leadings of scientific revelation,
the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were
illumined; reason and revelation were recon-
ciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian
Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue
taught me the Science contained in this book, SCIENCE
AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor pen can over-
throw it. This book may be distorted by shallow criti-
cism or by careless or malicious students, and its ideas
may be temporarily abused and misrepresented; but the
Science and truth therein will forever remain to be dis-
cerned and demonstrated.
The demonstration lost and found
110:25
Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science to
heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost
sight of, and must again be spiritually dis-
cerned, taught, and demonstrated according
to Christ's command, with "signs following."
Its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe
on Christ and spiritually understand Truth.
Mystical antagonists
110:32
No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of
111:1
agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or
millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Chris-
tian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous
reason of the human mind, to be opposed to
the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.
Optical illustration of Science
111:6
Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The
Science of God and man is no more supernatural than
is the science of numbers, though departing
from the realm of the physical, as the Science
of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to
the name of Science. The Principle of divine metaphysics
is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utiliza-
tion of the power of Truth over error; its rules demon-
strate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted
and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the ex-
planation of optics rejects the incidental or inverted
image and shows what this inverted image is meant to
represent.
Pertinent proposal
111:19
A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford Uni-
versity, England, for the best essay on Natural Science,
– an essay calculated to offset the tendency of
the age to attribute physical effects to physical
causes rather than to a final spiritual cause, – is one of
many incidents which show that Christian Science meets
a yearning of the human race for spirituality.
Confirmatory tests
111:26
After a lengthy examination of my discovery and its
demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evi-
dent to me, – that Mind governs the body,
not partially but wholly. I submitted my
metaphysical system of treating disease to the broad-
est practical tests. Since then this system has gradually
gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever scien-
112:1
tifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent
in medical practice.
One school of Truth
112:3
Is there more than one school of Christian Science?
Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, there-
fore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who de-
part from this method forfeit their claims to
belong to its school, and they become adher-
ents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some
other school. By this is meant that they adopt and ad-
here to some particular system of human opinions. Al-
though these opinions may have occasional gleams of
divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which
eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain
wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not
scientifically Christian.
Unchanging Principle
112:16
From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one
Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude
come spiritual rules, laws, and their demon-
stration, which, like the great Giver, are "the
same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" for thus are
the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea charac-
terized in the epistle to the Hebrews.
On sandy foundations
112:23
Any theory of Christian Science, which departs from
what has already been stated and proved to be true, af-
fords no foundation upon which to establish
a genuine school of this Science. Also, if any
so-called new school claims to be Christian Science, and
yet uses another author's discoveries without giving that
author proper credit, such a school is erroneous, for it
inculcates a breach of that divine commandment in the
Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou shalt not steal."
Principle and practice
112:32
God is the Principle of divine metaphysics. As there
113:1
is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of
all Science; and there must be fixed rules for the demon-
stration of this divine Principle. The letter
of Science plentifully reaches humanity to-day,
but its spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part,
the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. With-
out this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, –
pulseless, cold, inanimate.
Reversible propositions
113:9
The fundamental propositions of divine metaphysics
are summarized in the four following, to me, self-evident
propositions. Even if reversed, these proposi-
tions will be found to agree in statement and
proof, showing mathematically their exact relation to
Truth. De Quincey says mathematics has not a foot to
stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.
1. God is All-in-all.
2. God is good. Good is Mind.
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.
4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin,
disease. – Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipo-
tent God, Life.
113:22
Which of the denials in proposition four is true? Both
are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture,
I find that God is true, "but every [mortal] man a
liar."
Metaphysical inversions
113:26
The divine metaphysics of Christian Science, like the
method in mathematics, proves the rule by inversion.
For example: There is no pain in Truth, and
no truth in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no
mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in mat-
ter; no matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter
in good, and no good in matter.
Definition of mortal mind
114:1
Usage classes both evil and good together as mind;
therefore, to be understood, the author calls sick and sin-
ful humanity mortal mind, – meaning by this
term the flesh opposed to Spirit, the human
mind and evil in contradistinction to the divine Mind, or
Truth and good. The spiritually unscientific definition
of mind is based on the evidence of the physical senses,
which makes minds many and calls mind both human and
divine.
114:10
In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phe-
nomena, God and His thoughts.
Imperfect terminology
114:12
Mortal mind is a solecism in language, and involves an
improper use of the word mind. As Mind is immortal,
the phrase mortal mind implies something un-
true and therefore unreal; and as the phrase
is used in teaching Christian Science, it is meant to
designate that which has no real existence. Indeed, if
a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would
be used; but in expressing the new tongue we must
sometimes recur to the old and imperfect, and the new
wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of
the letter.
Causation mental
114:23
Christian Science explains all cause and effect as men-
tal, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and
body. It shows the scientific relation of man
to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities
of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine
Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmoni-
ous, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed mat-
ter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the
author mortal mind.
Philological inadequacy
114:32
Apart from the usual opposition to everything new,
115:1
the one great obstacle to the reception of that spiritual-
ity, through which the understanding of Mind-science
comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for
metaphysical statements, and the consequent
difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make
them comprehensible to any reader, who has not person-
ally demonstrated Christian Science as brought forth in
my discovery. Job says: "The ear trieth words, as the
mouth tasteth meat." The great difficulty is to give the
right impression, when translating material terms back
into the original spiritual tongue.
115:12
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF IMMORTAL MIND
Divine synonyms
115:13
GOD: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love,
Soul, Spirit, Mind.
Divine image
115:15
MAN: God's spiritual idea, individual, per-
fect, eternal.
Divine reflection
115:17
IDEA: An image in Mind; the immediate
object of understanding. – Webster.
115:19
SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION OF MORTAL MIND
115:20
First Degree: Depravity.
Unreality
115:21
PHYSICAL. Evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear,
depraved will, self-justification, pride, envy, de-
ceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, disease,
death.
115:25
Second Degree: Evil beliefs disappearing.
Transitional qualities
115:26
MORAL. Humanity, honesty, affection, com-
passion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
116:1
Third Degree: Understanding.
Reality
116:2
SPIRITUAL. Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding,
spiritual power, love, health, holiness.
Spiritual universe
116:4
In the third degree mortal mind disappears, and man as
God's image appears. Science so reverses the evidence
before the corporeal human senses, as to make
this Scriptural testimony true in our hearts,
"The last shall be first, and the first last," so that God
and His idea may be to us what divinity really is and
must of necessity be, – all-inclusive.
Aim of Science
116:11
A correct view of Christian Science and of its adapta-
tion to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen.
Works on metaphysics leave the grand point
untouched. They never crown the power of
Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against
physical enemies, – even to the extinction of all belief in
matter, evil, disease, and death, – nor insist upon the fact
that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an
image in mortal mind.
Divine personality
116:20
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the thought that
God is not corporeal, but incorporeal, – that is,
bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is
incorporeal.
116:24
As the words person and personal are commonly and
ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to
Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity
and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality,
as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is
infinite Person, – in the sense of infinite personality, but
not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form
is an absolute impossibility.
117:1
The term individuality is also open to objections, be-
cause an individual may be one of a series, one of many,
as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God
is One, – not one of a series, but one alone and without
an equal.
Spiritual language
117:6
God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must
be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physi-
cal nature and significance to the Supreme
Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do
this. God's essential language is spoken of in the last
chapter of Mark's Gospel as the new tongue, the spir-
itual meaning of which is attained through "signs
following."
The miracles of Jesus
117:14
Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure lan-
guage of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by simili-
tudes and parables. As a divine student he
unfolded God to man, illustrating and demon-
strating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over
the sick and sinning. Human theories are inadequate to
interpret the divine Principle involved in the miracles
(marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his mighty,
crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the
flesh.
Opacity of the senses
117:24
Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates
solely to human reason; and because of opaci-
ty to the true light, human reason dimly re-
flects and feebly transmits Jesus' works and words. Truth
is a revelation.
Leaven of Truth
117:29
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he de-
fined as human doctrines. His parable of the
"leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures
118:1
of meal, till the whole was leavened," impels the infer-
ence that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ
and its spiritual interpretation, – an inference far above
the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the
illustration.
118:6
Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy,
foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the
Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visi-
ble world?
118:10
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It
must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally
glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
The divine and human contrasted
118:13
In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and
Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spirit-
ual laws emanating from the invisible and in-
finite power and grace. The parable may
import that these spiritual laws, perverted by
a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically pre-
sented as three measures of meal, – that is, three modes
of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust
is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and
modes of material motion are honored with the name of
laws. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes
the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical
properties of meal.
Certain contradictions
118:26
The definitions of material law, as given by natural
science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against
itself, because these definitions portray law as
physical, not spiritual. Therefore they con-
tradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in
which nature and God are one and the natural order of
heaven comes down to earth.
Unescapable dilemma
119:1
When we endow matter with vague spiritual power,
that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we
cannot really endow matter with what it does
not and cannot possess, – we disown the Al-
mighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They
either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government
of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product
of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and con-
sider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the cre-
ator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other
horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of
matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disas-
ters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their
source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpet-
ual misrule in the form and under the name of natural
law.
God and nature
119:17
In one sense God is identical with nature, but this na-
ture is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The law‑
giver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in
death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal
of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is repre-
sented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be
regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature
of Spirit, God.
The sun and Soul
119:25
In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it contradicts
the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth
is in motion and the sun at rest. As astron-
omy reverses the human perception of the
movement of the solar system, so Christian Science re-
verses the seeming relation of Soul and body and makes
body tributary to Mind. Thus it is with man, who
is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it
120:1
seems otherwise to finite sense. But we shall never under-
stand this while we admit that soul is in body or mind in
matter, and that man is included in non-intelligence.
Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and eternal; and
man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is God's
image.
Reversal of testimony
120:7
Science reverses the false testimony of the physical
senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the funda-
mental facts of being. Then the question in-
evitably arises: Is a man sick if the material
senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter
can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the
senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science in which
health is normal and disease is abnormal.
Health and the senses
120:15
Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor
can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the sub-
ject of health. The Science of Mind-healing
shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind
to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. There-
fore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testi-
mony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously
existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and
thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows
false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.
120:25
Any conclusion pro or con, deduced from supposed sen-
sation in matter or from matter's supposed consciousness
of health or disease, instead of reversing the testimony of
the physical senses, confirms that testimony as legitimate
and so leads to disease.
Historic illustrations
120:30
When Columbus gave freer breath to the
globe, ignorance and superstition chained the
limbs of the brave old navigator, and disgrace and star-
121:1
vation stared him in the face; but sterner still would have
been his fate, if his discovery had undermined the favor-
ite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.
121:4
Copernicus mapped out the stellar system, and before
he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields
were incorrectly explored.
Perennial beauty
121:7
The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the fate of
empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher
revelation than the horoscope was to them dis-
played upon the empyrean, earth and heaven
were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God's
perennial and happy sunshine, golden with Truth. So
we have goodness and beauty to gladden the heart; but
man, left to the hypotheses of material sense unexplained
by Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate
star – "a weary searcher for a viewless home."
Astronomic unfoldings
121:17
The earth's diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical
eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead
of the earth from west to east. Until rebuked
by clearer views of the everlasting facts, this
false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment and in-
duced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often
to be erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple
rule that the greater controls the lesser. The sun is the
central stillness, so far as our solar system is concerned,
and the earth revolves about the sun once a year, besides
turning daily on its own axis.
121:28
As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the
action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflec-
tion of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and
is allied to divine Science as displayed in the everlasting
government of the universe.
Opposing testimony
122:1
The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the
real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, –
assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and
death; but the great facts of Life, rightly un-
derstood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false
witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, – the actual
reign of harmony on earth. The material senses' re-
versal of the Science of Soul was practically exposed nine-
teen hundred years ago by the demonstrations of Jesus;
yet these so-called senses still make mortal mind tributary
to mortal body, and ordain certain sections of matter, such
as brain and nerves, as the seats of pain and pleasure,
from which matter reports to this so-called mind its status
of happiness or misery.
Testimony of the senses
122:15
The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of
material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops
apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet
and mingle. The barometer, – that little
prophet of storm and sunshine, denying the testimony of
the senses, – points to fair weather in the midst of murky
clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances
of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall for
himself.
Spiritual sense of life
122:24
To material sense, the severance of the jugular vein
takes away life; but to spiritual sense and
in Science, Life goes on unchanged and
being is eternal. Temporal life is a false sense of
existence.
Ptolemaic and psychical error
122:29
Our theories make the same mistake regarding Soul
and body that Ptolemy made regarding the solar system.
They insist that soul is in body and mind therefore tribu-
tary to matter. Astronomical science has destroyed the
123:1
false theory as to the relations of the celestial bodies, and
Christian Science will surely destroy the greater error as
to our terrestrial bodies. The true idea and
Principle of man will then appear. The Ptole-
maic blunder could not affect the harmony of
being as does the error relating to soul and body, which
reverses the order of Science and assigns to matter the
power and prerogative of Spirit, so that man becomes
the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in
the universe.
Seeming and being
123:11
The verity of Mind shows conclusively how it is that
matter seems to be, but is not. Divine Science,
rising above physical theories, excludes matter,
resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of
material sense with spiritual ideas.
123:16
The term CHRISTIAN SCIENCE was introduced by
the author to designate the scientific system of divine
healing.
123:19
The revelation consists of two parts:
123:20
1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mind‑
healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and
through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by
the Master.
123:24
2. The proof, by present demonstration, that the so‑
called miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a
dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an
ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this
Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order
and continuity of being.
Scientific basis
123:30
Christian Science differs from material sci-
ence, but not on that account is it less scien-
tific. On the contrary, Christian Science is pre-emi-
124:1
nently scientific, being based on Truth, the Principle of
all science.
Physical science a blind belief
124:3
Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge, – a
law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his
strength. When this human belief lacks organ-
izations to support it, its foundations are gone.
Having neither moral might, spiritual basis,
nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect
for cause and seeks to find life and intelligence in matter,
thus limiting Life and holding fast to discord and death.
In a word, human belief is a blind conclusion from material
reasoning. This is a mortal, finite sense of things, which
immortal Spirit silences forever.
Right interpretation
124:14
The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science
from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be under-
stood; but when explained on the basis of
physical sense and represented as subject to
growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is,
and must continue to be, an enigma.
All force mental
124:20
Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of
Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support
the equipoise of that thought-force, which
launched the earth in its orbit and said to the
proud wave, "Thus far and no farther."
124:25
Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all
things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and
creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them
forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they
belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this
Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and
classification.
Corporeal changes
124:32
The elements and functions of the physical body and
125:1
of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes
its beliefs. What is now considered the best condition
for organic and functional health in the human
body may no longer be found indispensable
to health. Moral conditions will be found always har-
monious and health-giving. Neither organic inaction
nor overaction is beyond God's control; and man will
be found normal and natural to changed mortal thought,
and therefore more harmonious in his manifestations than
he was in the prior states which human belief created and
sanctioned.
125:12
As human thought changes from one stage to an-
other of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and
joy, – from fear to hope and from faith to understand-
ing, – the visible manifestation will at last be man gov-
erned by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God's
government, man is self-governed. When subordinate
to the divine Spirit, man cannot be controlled by sin or
death, thus proving our material theories about laws of
health to be valueless.
The time and tide
125:21
The seasons will come and go with changes of time and
tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agri-
culturist will find that these changes cannot
affect his crops. "As a vesture shalt Thou
change them and they shall be changed." The mariner
will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great
deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air.
The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, –
he will look out from them upon the universe; and the
florist will find his flower before its seed.
Mortal nothingness
125:31
Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more
than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man
126:1
through its supposed organic action or supposed exist-
ence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The
problem of nothingness, or "dust to dust," will
be solved, and mortal mind will be without
form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds
himself God's reflection, even as man sees his reflection
in a glass.
A lack of originality
126:8
All Science is divine. Human thought never pro-
jected the least portion of true being. Human belief
has sought and interpreted in its own way
the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have
reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human
mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive
sound.
Antagonistic questions
126:15
The point at issue between Christian Science on the
one hand and popular theology on the other is this: Shall
Science explain cause and effect as being
both natural and spiritual? Or shall all that
is beyond the cognizance of the material senses be called
supernatural, and be left to the mercy of speculative
hypotheses?
Biblical basis
126:22
I have set forth Christian Science and its application
to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them.
I have demonstrated through Mind the effects
of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals
of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern
systems on which to found my own, except the teachings
and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of
prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only au-
thority. I have had no other guide in "the straight and
narrow way" of Truth.
Science and Christianity
126:32
If Christendom resists the author's application of the
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