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

 

Impossible coalescence
144:1
not mingle scientifically. Why should we wish to make
them do so, since no good can come of it?
If Mind is foremost and superior, let us rely upon Mind,
which needs no cooperation from lower powers, even if
these so-called powers are real.
144:6
Naught is the squire, when the king is nigh;
Withdraws the star, when dawns the sun's brave light.
Soul and sense
144:8
The various mortal beliefs formulated in human philoso-
phy, physiology, hygiene, are mainly predicated of matter,
and afford faint gleams of God, or Truth.
The more material a belief, the more obstinately
tenacious its error; the stronger are the manifestations of
the corporeal senses, the weaker the indications of Soul.
Will-power detrimental
144:14
Human will-power is not Science. Human will belongs
to the so-called material senses, and its use is to be con-
demned. Willing the sick to recover is not the
metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but
is sheer animal magnetism. Human will-power may in-
fringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually,
and is not a factor in the realism of being. Truth, and
not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to
disease, "Peace, be still."
Conservative antagonism
144:23
Because divine Science wars with so-called physical
science, even as Truth wars with error, the old schools
still oppose it. Ignorance, pride, or prejudice
closes the door to whatever is not stereotyped.
When the Science of being is universally understood,
every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be
the universal panacea.
Ancient healers
144:30
It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired
healers understood the Science of Christian healing, or
145:1
whether they caught its sweet tones, as the natural
musician catches the tones of harmony, without being
able to explain them. So divinely imbued
were they with the spirit of Science, that the
lack of the letter could not hinder their work; and that
letter, without the spirit, would have made void their
practice.
The struggle and victory
145:8
The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not
between material methods, but between mortal minds
and immortal Mind. The victory will be on
the patient's side only as immortal Mind
through Christ, Truth, subdues the human belief in
disease. It matters not what material method one may
adopt, whether faith in drugs, trust in hygiene, or reliance
on some other minor curative.
Mystery of godliness
145:16
Scientific healing has this advantage over other meth-
ods, – that in it Truth controls error. From this fact
arise its ethical as well as its physical ef-
fects. Indeed, its ethical and physical effects
are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery
in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness
always presents to the ungodly, – the mystery always
arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerr-
ing Mind.
Matter versus matter
145:25
Other methods undertake to oppose error with error,
and thus they increase the antagonism of one form of
matter towards other forms of matter or error,
and the warfare between Spirit and the flesh
goes on. By this antagonism mortal mind must con-
tinually weaken its own assumed power.
How healing was lost
145:31
The theology of Christian Science includes healing
the sick. Our Master's first article of faith propounded
146:1
to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by
his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why
has this element of Christianity been lost?
Because our systems of religion are governed
more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idol-
atry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered
faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By
trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and
harmony have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren
of the vitality of spiritual power, by which material sense
is made the servant of Science and religion becomes
Christlike.
Drugs and divinity
146:13
Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of
God – even the might of Mind – to heal the body.
Scholasticism clings for salvation to the per-
son, instead of to the divine Principle, of the
man Jesus; and his Science, the curative agent of God,
is silenced. Why? Because truth divests material drugs
of their imaginary power, and clothes Spirit with suprem-
acy. Science is the "stranger that is within thy gates,"
remembered not, even when its elevating effects prac-
tically prove its divine origin and efficacy.
Christian Science as old as God
146:23
Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible,
and the divine origin of Science is demonstrated through
the holy influence of Truth in healing sick-
ness and sin. This healing power of Truth
must have been far anterior to the period in
which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as "the Ancient of
days." It lives through all Life, and extends throughout
all space.
Reduction to system
146:31
Divine metaphysics is now reduced to a system, to a
form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of
147:1
the age in which we live. This system enables the
learner to demonstrate the divine Principle,
upon which Jesus' healing was based, and
the sacred rules for its present application to the cure of
disease.
147:6
Late in the nineteenth century I demonstrated the divine
rules of Christian Science. They were submitted to the
broadest practical test, and everywhere, when honestly ap-
plied under circumstances where demonstration was hu-
manly possible, this Science showed that Truth had lost
none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though cen-
turies had passed away since Jesus practised these rules
on the hills of Judaea and in the valleys of Galilee.
Perusal and practice
147:14
Although this volume contains the complete Science of
Mind-healing, never believe that you can absorb the whole
meaning of the Science by a simple perusal
of this book. The book needs to be studied,
and the demonstration of the rules of scientific healing
will plant you firmly on the spiritual groundwork of
Christian Science. This proof lifts you high above the
perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and en-
ables you to grasp the spiritual facts of being hitherto
unattained and seemingly dim.
A definite rule discovered
147:24
Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian heal-
ing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to
his students; but he left no definite rule for
demonstrating this Principle of healing and
preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered
in Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in good-
ness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of
goodness and demonstrates its rules.
Jesus' own practice
147:32
Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous or as difficult
148:1
to heal. When his students brought to him a case they
had failed to heal, he said to them, "O faithless gen-
eration," implying that the requisite power
to heal was in Mind. He prescribed no drugs,
urged no obedience to material laws, but acted in direct
disobedience to them.
The man of anatomy and of theology
148:7
Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man
as created by Spirit, – as God's man. The former ex-
plains the men of men, or the "children of
men," as created corporeally instead of spir-
itually and as emerging from the lowest, in-
stead of from the highest, conception of being. Both
anatomy and theology define man as both physical and
mental, and place mind at the mercy of matter for every
function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes
up man at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the
true tone, and accepts the discord. Anatomy and the-
ology reject the divine Principle which produces harmo-
nious man, and deal – the one wholly, the other primarily
– with matter, calling that man which is not the counter-
part, but the counterfeit, of God's man. Then theology
tries to explain how to make this man a Christian, – how
from this basis of division and discord to produce the con-
cord and unity of Spirit and His likeness.
Physiology deficient
148:25
Physiology exalts matter, dethrones Mind, and claims
to rule man by material law, instead of spiritual. When
physiology fails to give health or life by this
process, it ignores the divine Spirit as unable
or unwilling to render help in time of physical need.
When mortals sin, this ruling of the schools leaves them
to the guidance of a theology which admits God to be
the healer of sin but not of sickness, although our great
149:1
Master demonstrated that Truth could save from sickness
as well as from sin.
Blunders and blunderers
149:3
Mind as far outweighs drugs in the cure of disease as
in the cure of sin. The more excellent way is divine
Science in every case. Is materia medica a
science or a bundle of speculative human
theories? The prescription which succeeds in one in-
stance fails in another, and this is owing to the different
mental states of the patient. These states are not com-
prehended and they are left without explanation except
in Christian Science. The rule and its perfection of opera-
tion never vary in Science. If you fail to succeed in any
case, it is because you have not demonstrated the life of
Christ, Truth, more in your own life, – because you have
not obeyed the rule and proved the Principle of divine
Science.
Old-school physician
149:17
A physician of the old school remarked with great
gravity: "We know that mind affects the body some-
what, and advise our patients to be hopeful
and cheerful and to take as little medicine as
possible; but mind can never cure organic difficulties."
The logic is lame, and facts contradict it. The author
has cured what is termed organic disease as readily as she
has cured purely functional disease, and with no power
but the divine Mind.
Tests in our day
149:26
Since God, divine Mind, governs all, not partially but
supremely, predicting disease does not dignify therapeutics.
Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits
mind and body. We need to understand the
affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and
demonstrate truth according to Christ. To-day there
is hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not to
150:1
be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue
and power of Truth, as applied through this Christian
system of healing disease.
The main purpose
150:4
To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demon-
strated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a
phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the
coming anew of the gospel of "on earth peace,
good-will toward men." This coming, as was promised
by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent
dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian
Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration,
is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then,
signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical heal-
ing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demon-
strate its divine origin, – to attest the reality of the higher
mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the
world.
Exploded doctrine
150:18
The science (so-called) of physics would have one be-
lieve that both matter and mind are subject to disease,
and that, too, in spite of the individual's pro-
test and contrary to the law of divine Mind.
This human view infringes man's free moral agency; and
it is as evidently erroneous to the author, and will be to
all others at some future day, as the practically rejected
doctrine of the predestination of souls to damnation or
salvation. The doctrine that man's harmony is gov-
erned by physical conditions all his earthly days, and that
he is then thrust out of his own body by the operation of
matter, – even the doctrine of the superiority of matter
over Mind, – is fading out.
Disease mental
150:31
The hosts of AEsculapius are flooding the world with
diseases, because they are ignorant that the human mind
151:1
and body are myths. To be sure, they sometimes treat
the sick as if there was but one factor in the case; but
this one factor they represent to be body, not
mind. Infinite Mind could not possibly create
a remedy outside of itself, but erring, finite, human mind
has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its
redemption and healing.
Intentions respected
151:8
Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of
the higher class of physicians. We know that if they un-
derstood the Science of Mind-healing, and were
in possession of the enlarged power it confers
to benefit the race physically and spiritually, they would
rejoice with us. Even this one reform in medicine would
ultimately deliver mankind from the awful and oppres-
sive bondage now enforced by false theories, from which
multitudes would gladly escape.
Man governed by Mind
151:17
Mortal belief says that death has been occasioned by
fright. Fear never stopped being and its action. The
blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing
to do with Life, God. Every function of the
real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human
mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no con-
trol over God's man. The divine Mind that made man
maintains His own image and likeness. The human
mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul
declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and
its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found har-
monious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to
see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and
follow the leadings of truth.
Mortal mind dethroned
151:31
That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the
mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so‑
152:1
called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield
to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but
it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind
takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and
saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored
to make this book the AEsculapius of mind as well as of
body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them,
although they know not how the work is done. Truth
has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.
All activity from thought
152:10
Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by
mind in one instance and not in another. Such errors
beset every material theory, in which one
statement contradicts another over and over
again. It is related that Sir Humphry Davy once ap-
parently cured a case of paralysis simply by introducing
a thermometer into the patient's mouth. This he did
merely to ascertain the temperature of the patient's body;
but the sick man supposed this ceremony was intended
to heal him, and he recovered accordingly. Such a fact
illustrates our theories.
The author's experiments in medicine
152:21
The author's medical researches and experiments had
prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian
Science. Every material dependence had
failed her in her search for truth; and she can
now understand why, and can see the means
by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source
for health and happiness.
Homoeopathic attenuations
152:28
Her experiments in homoeopathy had made her skep-
tical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from
Aconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates
the general symptoms, the characteristic
signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug
153:1
is frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a ves-
tige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug
which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms
of disease.
Only salt and water
153:5
The author has attenuated Natrum muriaticum (com-
mon table-salt) until there was not a single saline property
left. The salt had "lost his savour;" and yet,
with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of
water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at in-
tervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in
the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation
of homoeopathy and the most potent rises above matter into
mind. This discovery leads to more light. From it may
be learned that either human faith or the divine Mind is
the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.
Origin of pain
153:16
You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for
matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply
manifests, through inflammation and swell-
ing, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a
boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high
attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The
fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind
to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its
own pain – that is, its own belief in pain.
Source of contagion
153:25
We weep because others weep, we yawn because they
yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but
mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries
the infection. When this mental contagion is
understood, we shall be more careful of our mental con-
ditions and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about
disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither
sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish
154:1
error in any form, and certainly we should not be error's
advocate.
Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from as-
sociation. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain
diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law ob-
tains credit through association, – calling up the fear that
creates the image of disease and its consequent manifes-
tation in the body.
Imaginary cholera
154:9
This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following
incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a
bed where a cholera patient had died. Imme-
diately the symptoms of this disease appeared,
and the man died. The fact was, that he had not caught
the cholera by material contact, because no cholera patient
had been in that bed.
Children's ailments
154:16
If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the
mother is frightened and says, "My child will be sick."
The law of mortal mind and her own fears gov-
ern her child more than the child's mind gov-
erns itself, and they produce the very results which might
have been prevented through the opposite understanding.
Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought
the mischief.
154:24
That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affec-
tions need better guidance, who says to her child: "You
look sick," "You look tired," "You need rest," or "You
need medicine."
154:28
Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has
hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning
more childishly than her child, "Mamma knows you are
hurt." The better and more successful method for any
mother to adopt is to say: "Oh, never mind! You're not
155:1
hurt, so don't think you are." Presently the child forgets
all about the accident, and is at play.
Drug-power mental
155:3
When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law
of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which
heals; and according to this faith will the effect
be. Even when you take away the individual
confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced the drug
from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the
druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine
with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority
rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate
drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, un-
less it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority,
and such a belief is governed by the majority.
Belief in physics
155:15
The universal belief in physics weighs against the high
and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This errone-
ous general belief, which sustains medicine and
produces all medical results, works against
Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the
side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of
popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The
human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords
of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less
weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight
into the spiritual scale. Homoeopathy diminishes the
drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the
drug disappears.
Nature of drugs
155:28
Vegetarianism, homoeopathy, and hydropathy have
diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to
disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs
are good things, is it safe to say that the
less in quantity you have of them the better? If drugs
156:1
possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities,
these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and
what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or
injurious?
Dropsy cured without drugs
156:5
A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into
my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been
employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the
patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed
the fourth attenuation of Argentum nitratum with occa-
sional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She im-
proved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the
ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that
her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I
began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their
prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was
unwilling to give up the medicine while she was re-
covering. It then occurred to me to give her un-
medicated pellets and watch the result. I did so, and
she continued to gain. Finally she said that she would
give up her medicine for one day, and risk the
effects. After trying this, she informed me that she
could get along two days without globules; but on
the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by
taking them. She went on in this way, taking the
unmedicated pellets, – and receiving occasional visits
from me, – but employing no other means, and she was
cured.
A stately advance
156:28
Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the
next stately step beyond homoeopathy. In metaphysics,
matter disappears from the remedy entirely,
and Mind takes its rightful and supreme
place. Homoeopathy takes mental symptoms largely
157:1
into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian
Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and
destroying disease. It succeeds where homoeopathy fails,
solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is
Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is em-
ployed through the Science of Mind, which never shares
its rights with inanimate matter.
The modus of homoeopathy
157:8
Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on
Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that
the divine Mind has all power. Homoeopathy
mentalizes a drug with such repetition of
thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes
more like the human mind than the substratum of this so‑
called mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power
of action is proportionately increased.
Drugging unchristian
157:16
If drugs are part of God's creation, which (according
to the narrative in Genesis) He pronounced good, then
drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could cre-
ate drugs intrinsically bad, then they should
never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs
them for medical use, why did Jesus not employ them
and recommend them for the treatment of disease?
Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Erring
mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to
possess.
157:26
Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so relieve the body;
but they leave both mind and body worse for this sub-
mission. Christian Science impresses the entire corpore-
ality, – namely, mind and body, – and brings out the
proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science
both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the
better for this spiritual and profound pathology.
Mythology and materia medica
158:1
It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated
in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to
heal the sick and designated Apollo as "the god
of medicine." He was supposed to have dic-
tated the first prescription, according to the
"History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine." It is
here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender
of disease, "the god of pestilence." Hippocrates turned
from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for heal-
ing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but
what we need is the truth which heals both mind and
body. The future history of material medicine may
correspond with that of its material god, Apollo, who was
banished from heaven and endured great sufferings
upon earth.
Footsteps to intemperance
158:16
Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes
for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its effi-
cacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into
temptation through the byways of this wil-
derness world, – to victimize the race with intoxicating
prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an
educated appetite for strong drink, and men and women
become loathsome sots.
Advancing degrees
158:24
Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us
on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on
matter and so letting in matter's higher stra-
tum, mortal mind. Homoeopathy, a step in
advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out
of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation
than the drug, is governing the pellet.
Effects of fear
158:31
A woman in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, was
etherized and died in consequence, although her physi-
159:1
cians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed
surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy,
her sister testified that the deceased protested
against inhaling the ether and said it would kill
her, but that she was compelled by her physicians to take
it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into sub-
mission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence
was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that
death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of
inhaling it.
Mental conditions to be heeded
159:11
Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of men-
tal conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so
much mindless matter, and as if matter were
the only factor to be consulted? Had these
unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics,
they would have considered the woman's state of mind,
and not have risked such treatment. They would either
have allayed her fear or would have performed the opera-
tion without ether.
159:20
The sequel proved that this Lynn woman died from
effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease
or the operation.
False source of knowledge
159:23
The medical schools would learn the state of man
from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the
lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how
much harmony, or health, matter is permit-
ting to matter, – how much pain or pleasure, action or
stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form
of matter.
159:30
Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces dis-
ease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician is
liable to increase disease with his own mind, when he
160:1
should address himself to the work of destroying it through
the power of the divine Mind.
160:3
The systems of physics act against metaphysics, and
vice versa. When mortals forsake the material for the
spiritual basis of action, drugs lose their healing force,
for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the
faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes
powerless.
Obedient muscles
160:9
The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the
direction of mortal mind, than are the organic action and
secretion of the viscera. When this so-called
mind quits the body, the heart becomes as tor-
pid as the hand.
Anatomy and mind
160:14
Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the man-
date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does
anatomy say when the cords contract and be-
come immovable? Has mortal mind ceased
speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent?
Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind
in one instance and not in another, and become cramped
despite the mental protest?
160:22
Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are
never so, – never capable of acting contrary to mental
direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid
of their own preference, – be deformed or symmetrical,
as they please or as disease directs, – they must be self‑
directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mor-
tal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from
anatomy that muscle is not so governed?
Mind over matter
160:30
Is man a material fungus without Mind
to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted
muscle as much a result of law as the supple and
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