Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter XV - Genesis

 

Scriptural perception
548:1
"The Spirit and the bride say, Come! . . . and whoso-
ever will, let him take the water of life freely." Christian
Science separates error from truth, and breathes
through the sacred pages the spiritual sense of
life, substance, and intelligence. In this Science, we dis-
cover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that
man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal
harmony.
The clouds dissolving
548:9
How little light or heat reach our earth when clouds
cover the sun's face! So Christian Science can be seen
only as the clouds of corporeal sense roll away.
Earth has little light or joy for mortals before
Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error
helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension
of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on
hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true
ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.
Prediction of a naturalist
548:18
Speaking of the origin of mortals, a famous naturalist
says: "It is very possible that many general statements
now current, about birth and generation, will
be changed with the progress of information."
Had the naturalist, through his tireless researches, gained
the diviner side in Christian Science, – so far apart from
his material sense of animal growth and organization, –
he would have blessed the human race more abundantly.
Methods of reproduction
548:26
Natural history is richly endowed by the labors and
genius of great men. Modern discoveries have brought
to light important facts in regard to so-called
embryonic life. Agassiz declares ("Methods
of Study in Natural History,") "Certain ani-
mals, besides the ordinary process of generation, also
increase their numbers naturally and constantly by self‑
549:1
division." This discovery is corroborative of the Science
of Mind, for this discovery shows that the multiplication
of certain animals takes place apart from sexual condi-
tions. The supposition that life germinates in eggs and
must decay after it has grown to maturity, if not before,
is shown by divine metaphysics to be a mistake, – a
blunder which will finally give place to higher theories
and demonstrations.
The three processes
549:9
Creatures of lower forms of organism are supposed
to have, as classes, three different methods of reproduc-
tion and to multiply their species sometimes
through eggs, sometimes through buds, and
sometimes through self-division. According to recent
lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of
new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation
of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individu-
alities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look
upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of
the most complicated corporeal structures, including those
which we call human. Here these material researches
culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily
attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are de-
void of metaphysics.
Deference to material law
549:24
In one instance a celebrated naturalist, Agassiz, dis-
covers the pathway leading to divine Science, and beards
the lion of materialism in its den. At that
point, however, even this great observer mis-
takes nature, forsakes Spirit as the divine origin of
creative Truth, and allows matter and material law to
usurp the prerogatives of omnipotence. He absolutely
drops from his summit, coming down to a belief in the
material origin of man, for he virtually affirms that
550:1
the germ of humanity is in a circumscribed and non‑
intelligent egg.
Deep-reaching interrogations
550:3
If this be so, whence cometh Life, or Mind, to the
human race? Matter surely does not possess Mind.
God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms
and preserves the individuality and identity
of animals as well as of men. God cannot
become finite, and be limited within material bounds.
Spirit cannot become matter, nor can Spirit be developed
through its opposite. Of what avail is it to investigate
what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be-
gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being
and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it
will hereafter.
Stages of existence
550:15
Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The
continual contemplation of existence as material and cor-
poreal – as beginning and ending, and with
birth, decay, and dissolution as its component
stages – hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes
our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting‑
point whatsoever, then the great I AM is a myth. If Life
is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry-
onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for
Deity.
550:25
Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro-
ducing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor
does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed
monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous
and absurd as the supposition that Spirit – the pure and
holy, the immutable and immortal – can originate the
impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science
repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses
551:1
must father these absurdities, for both the material senses
and their reports are unnatural, impossible, and unreal.
The real producer
551:3
Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is
first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity,
called matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro-
duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural
history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual
history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.
The ascent of species
551:9
One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring
from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he
adds that mankind has ascended through all
the lower grades of existence. Evolution de-
scribes the gradations of human belief, but it does not
acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma-
terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that
all Science is of God, not of man.
Transmitted peculiarities
551:17
Naturalists ask: "What can there be, of a material
nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs, –
themselves composed of the simplest material
elements, – by which all peculiarities of an-
cestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from
generation to generation?" The question of the natu-
ralist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans-
mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and
doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on
materiality. From a material standpoint, "Canst thou
by searching find out God?" All must be Mind, or
else all must be matter. Neither can produce the other.
Mind is immortal; but error declares that the material
seed must decay in order to propagate its species, and
the resulting germ is doomed to the same routine.
Causation not in matter
551:32
The ancient and hypothetical question, Which is first,
552:1
the egg or the bird? is answered, if the egg produces the
parent. But we cannot stop here. Another question
follows: Who or what produces the parent of
the egg? That the earth was hatched from the
"egg of night" was once an accepted theory. Heathen
philosophy, modern geology, and all other material hy-
potheses deal with causation as contingent on matter
and as necessarily apparent to the corporeal senses, even
where the proof requisite to sustain this assumption is un-
discovered. Mortal theories make friends of sin, sickness,
and death; whereas the spiritual scientific facts of exist-
ence include no member of this dolorous and fatal triad.
Emergence of mortals
552:13
Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an
egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, "Man
that is born of a woman is of few days, and
full of trouble." Mortals must emerge from
this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck
open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward
and upward. But thought, loosened from a material
basis but not yet instructed by Science, may become wild
with freedom and so be self-contradictory.
Persistence of species
552:22
From a material source flows no remedy for sorrow,
sin, and death, for the redeeming power, from the ills
they occasion, is not in egg nor in dust. The
blending tints of leaf and flower show the
order of matter to be the order of mortal mind. The
intermixture of different species, urged to its utmost
limits, results in a return to the original species. Thus
it is learned that matter is a manifestation of mortal
mind, and that matter always surrenders its claims when
the perfect and eternal Mind is understood.
Better basis than embryology
552:32
Naturalists describe the origin of mortal and material
553:1
existence in the various forms of embryology, and ac-
company their descriptions with important observations,
which should awaken thought to a higher and
purer contemplation of man's origin. This
clearer consciousness must precede an under-
standing of the harmony of being. Mortal thought must
obtain a better basis, get nearer the truth of being, or
health will never be universal, and harmony will never
become the standard of man.
553:10
One of our ablest naturalists has said: "We have no
right to assume that individuals have grown or been
formed under circumstances which made material con-
ditions essential to their maintenance and reproduction,
or important to their origin and first introduction."
Why, then, is the naturalist's basis so materialistic,
and why are his deductions generally material?
All nativity in thought
553:17
Adam was created before Eve. In this instance, it is
seen that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam.
Eve was formed from Adam's rib, not from a
foetal ovum. Whatever theory may be adopted
by general mortal thought to account for human origin,
that theory is sure to become the signal for the appear-
ance of its method in finite forms and operations. If con-
sentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the
point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief
will immediately supersede the more ancient supersti-
tion about the creation from dust or from the rib of our
primeval father.
Being is immortal
553:29
You may say that mortals are formed before they
think or know aught of their origin, and you
may also ask how belief can affect a result
which precedes the development of that belief. It can
554:1
only be replied, that Christian Science reveals what "eye
hath not seen," – even the cause of all that exists, – for
the universe, inclusive of man, is as eternal as God, who
is its divine immortal Principle. There is no such thing
as mortality, nor are there properly any mortal beings,
because being is immortal, like Deity, – or, rather, being
and Deity are inseparable.
Our conscious development
554:8
Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement
of life, following from a misconception of life, is errone-
ous, because it is destitute of any knowledge
of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of
any knowledge of its origin or existence. The mortal
is unconscious of his foetal and infantile existence; but
as he grows up into another false claim, that of self-con-
scious matter, he learns to say, "I am somebody; but
who made me?" Error replies, "God made you." The
first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the
creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite
Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.
Mendacity of error
554:20
Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation
better than we can, when he said, "He is a liar, and the
father of it." Jesus also said, "Have not I
chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
This he said of Judas, one of Adam's race. Jesus never
intimated that God made a devil, but he did say, "Ye
are of your father, the devil." All these sayings were to
show that mind in matter is the author of itself, and is
simply a falsity and illusion.
Ailments of animals
554:29
It is the general belief that the lower animals are less
sickly than those possessing higher organiza-
tions, especially those of the human form.
This would indicate that there is less disease in propor-
555:1
tion as the force of mortal mind is less pungent or sensi-
tive, and that health attends the absence of mortal mind.
A fair conclusion from this might be, that it is the human
belief, and not the divine arbitrament, which brings the
physical organism under the yoke of disease.
Ignorance the sign of error
555:6
An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian
Science: "I like your explanations of truth, but I do
not comprehend what you say about error."
This is the nature of error. The mark of igno-
rance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor
can be understood. Error would have itself received as
mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth; but
Christian Science attributes to error neither entity nor
power, because error is neither mind nor the outcome of
Mind.
The origin of divinity
555:16
Searching for the origin of man, who is the reflection
of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self‑
existent and eternal. Only impotent error
would seek to unite Spirit with matter, good
with evil, immortality with mortality, and call this
sham unity man, as if man were the offspring of both
Mind and matter, of both Deity and humanity. Crea-
tion rests on a spiritual basis. We lose our standard of
perfection and set aside the proper conception of Deity,
when we admit that the perfect is the author of aught
that can become imperfect, that God bestows the power
to sin, or that Truth confers the ability to err. Our
great example, Jesus, could restore the individualized
manifestation of existence, which seemed to vanish in
death. Knowing that God was the Life of man, Jesus
was able to present himself unchanged after the cruci-
fixion. Truth fosters the idea of Truth, and not the be-
556:1
lief in illusion or error. That which is real, is sustained
by Spirit.
Genera classified
556:3
Vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata are mor-
tal and material concepts classified, and are supposed to
possess life and mind. These false beliefs
will disappear, when the radiation of Spirit
destroys forever all belief in intelligent matter. Then
will the new heaven and new earth appear, for the for-
mer things will have passed away.
The Christian's privilege
556:10
Mortal belief infolds the conditions of sin. Mortal
belief dies to live again in renewed forms, only to go out
at last forever; for life everlasting is not to be
gained by dying. Christian Science may ab-
sorb the attention of sage and philosopher, but
the Christian alone can fathom it. It is made known
most fully to him who understands best the divine Life.
Did the origin and the enlightenment of the race come
from the deep sleep which fell upon Adam? Sleep is
darkness, but God's creative mandate was, "Let there be
light." In sleep, cause and effect are mere illusions.
They seem to be something, but are not. Oblivion and
dreams, not realities, come with sleep. Even so goes on
the Adam-belief, of which mortal and material life is the
dream.
Ontology versus physiology
556:25
Ontology receives less attention than physiology. Why?
Because mortal mind must waken to spiritual
life before it cares to solve the problem of
being, hence the author's experience; but when
that awakening comes, existence will be on a new stand-
point.
556:31
It is related that a father plunged his infant babe, only
a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and
557:1
repeated this operation daily, until the child could remain
under water twenty minutes, moving and playing with-
out harm, like a fish. Parents should remember this
and learn how to develop their children properly on dry
land.
The curse removed
557:6
Mind controls the birth-throes in the lower realms of
nature, where parturition is without suffering. Vege-
tables, minerals, and many animals suffer no
pain in multiplying; but human propagation
has its suffering because it is a false belief. Christian Sci-
ence reveals harmony as proportionately increasing as the
line of creation rises towards spiritual man, – towards
enlarged understanding and intelligence; but in the line
of the corporeal senses, the less a mortal knows of sin,
disease, and mortality, the better for him, – the less pain
and sorrow are his. When the mist of mortal mind evap-
orates, the curse will be removed which says to woman,
"In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." Divine
Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of
Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as
never dying, but as coexistent with his creator.
557:22
Popular theology takes up the history of man as if he
began materially right, but immediately fell into mental
sin; whereas revealed religion proclaims the Science of
Mind and its formations as being in accordance with
the first chapter of the Old Testament, when God, Mind,
spake and it was done.
Chapter XVI
The Apocalypse
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this proph-
ecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at
hand. – REVELATION.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God,
in the mountain of His holiness. – PSALMS.
558:1
ST. JOHN writes, in the tenth chapter of his book of
Revelation: –
558:3
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven,
clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and
his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of
fire: and he had in his hand a little book open: and he
set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the
earth.
The new Evangel
558:9
This angel or message which comes from God, clothed
with a cloud, prefigures divine Science. To mortal sense
Science seems at first obscure, abstract, and
dark; but a bright promise crowns its brow.
When understood, it is Truth's prism and praise. When
you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means,
and it has for you a light above the sun, for God "is the
light thereof." Its feet are pillars of fire, foundations
of Truth and Love. It brings the baptism of the Holy
Ghost, whose flames of Truth were prophetically de-
scribed by John the Baptist as consuming error.
Truth's volume
559:1
This angel had in his hand "a little book," open for
all to read and understand. Did this same book contain
the revelation of divine Science, the "right
foot" or dominant power of which was upon
the sea, – upon elementary, latent error, the source of
all error's visible forms? The angel's left foot was upon
the earth; that is, a secondary power was exercised upon
visible error and audible sin. The "still, small voice"
of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean
to the globe's remotest bound. The inaudible voice of
Truth is, to the human mind, "as when a lion roareth."
It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear. It
arouses the "seven thunders" of evil, and stirs their latent
forces to utter the full diapason of secret tones. Then is
the power of Truth demonstrated, – made manifest in
the destruction of error. Then will a voice from harmony
cry: "Go and take the little book. . . . Take it, and eat
it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in
thy mouth sweet as honey." Mortals, obey the heavenly
evangel. Take divine Science. Read this book from
beginning to end. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed
sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not
over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. When you
approach nearer and nearer to this divine Principle, when
you eat the divine body of this Principle, – thus partak-
ing of the nature, or primal elements, of Truth and Love,
– do not be surprised nor discontented because you must
share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs; for the
Israelites of old at the Paschal meal thus prefigured this
perilous passage out of bondage into the El Dorado of faith
and hope.
To-day's lesson
559:32
The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, or Revela-
560:1
tion of St. John, has a special suggestiveness in connec-
tion with the nineteenth century. In the opening of the
sixth seal, typical of six thousand years since
Adam, the distinctive feature has reference
to the present age.
560:6
Revelation xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in
heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars.
True estimate of God's messenger
560:10
Heaven represents harmony, and divine Science inter-
prets the Principle of heavenly harmony. The great
miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and
the grand necessity of existence is to gain the
true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of
heaven in man. This goal is never reached while we
hate our neighbor or entertain a false estimate of any-
one whom God has appointed to voice His Word. Again,
without a correct sense of its highest visible idea, we can
never understand the divine Principle. The botanist must
know the genus and species of a plant in order to classify
it correctly. As it is with things, so is it with persons.
Persecution harmful
560:22
Abuse of the motives and religion of St. Paul hid from
view the apostle's character, which made him equal to
his great mission. Persecution of all who have
spoken something new and better of God has
not only obscured the light of the ages, but has been fatal
to the persecutors. Why? Because it has hid from
them the true idea which has been presented. To mis-
understand Paul, was to be ignorant of the divine idea he
taught. Ignorance of the divine idea betrays at once a
greater ignorance of the divine Principle of the idea – igno-
561:1
rance of Truth and Love. The understanding of Truth
and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal
good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of
evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea.
Espousals supernal
561:5
Agassiz, through his microscope, saw the sun in an
egg at a point of so-called embryonic life. Because of
his more spiritual vision, St. John saw an
"angel standing in the sun." The Revelator
beheld the spiritual idea from the mount of vision.
Purity was the symbol of Life and Love. The Revelator
saw also the spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light, a
bride coming down from heaven, wedded to the Lamb
of Love. To John, "the bride" and "the Lamb" repre-
sented the correlation of divine Principle and spiritual idea,
God and His Christ, bringing harmony to earth.
Divinity and humanity
561:16
John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in
the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life
and its demonstration, – reducing to human
perception and understanding the Life which
is God. In divine revelation, material and corporeal self‑
hood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.
Spiritual sunlight
561:22
The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man,
the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence
of God and man as the divine Principle and
divine idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit
by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance
of spiritual Truth, and matter is put under her feet. The
light portrayed is really neither solar nor lunar, but spirit-
ual Life, which is "the light of men." In the first chapter
of the Fourth Gospel it is written, "There was a man sent
from God . . . to bear witness of that Light."
Spiritual idea revealed
561:32
John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the im-
562:1
maculate Jesus, and John saw in those days the spiritual
idea as the Messiah, who would baptize with the Holy
Ghost, – divine Science. As Elias presented
the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus
afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this
figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God's
motherhood. The moon is under her feet. This idea
reveals the universe as secondary and tributary to Spirit,
from which the universe borrows its reflected light, sub-
stance, life, and intelligence.
Spiritual idea crowned
562:11
The spiritual idea is crowned with twelve stars. The
twelve tribes of Israel with all mortals, – separated by
belief from man's divine origin and the true
idea, – will through much tribulation yield to
the activities of the divine Principle of man in the har-
mony of Science. These are the stars in the crown of
rejoicing. They are the lamps in the spiritual heavens
of the age, which show the workings of the spiritual idea
by healing the sick and the sinning, and by manifesting
the light which shines "unto the perfect day" as the night
of materialism wanes.
562:22
Revelation xii. 2. And she being with child cried, travail-
ing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
Travail and joy
562:24
Also the spiritual idea is typified by a woman in tra-
vail, waiting to be delivered of her sweet promise, but re-
membering no more her sorrow for joy that
the birth goes on; for great is the idea, and the
travail portentous.
562:29
Revelation xii. 3. And there appeared another wonder in
heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
The dragon as a type
563:1
Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a
diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal.
We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, and
death. We may well be perplexed at human
fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts
its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions
of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?
The great red dragon symbolizes a lie, – the belief
that substance, life, and intelligence can be material.
This dragon stands for the sum total of human error.
The ten horns of the dragon typify the belief that mat-
ter has power of its own, and that by means of an
evil mind in matter the Ten Commandments can be
broken.
The sting of the serpent
563:15
The Revelator lifts the veil from this embodiment of
all evil, and beholds its awful character; but he also
sees the nothingness of evil and the allness of
God. The Revelator sees that old serpent,
whose name is devil or evil, holding untiring watch, that
he may bite the heel of truth and seemingly impede the
offspring of the spiritual idea, which is prolific in health,
holiness, and immortality.
563:23
Revelation xii. 4. And his tail drew the third part of the
stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the
dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be
delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
Animal tendency
563:27
The serpentine form stands for subtlety, winding its
way amidst all evil, but doing this in the name of good.
Its sting is spoken of by Paul, when he refers
to "spiritual wickedness in high places." It
is the animal instinct in mortals, which would impel
564:1
them to devour each other and cast out devils through
Beelzebub.
564:3
As of old, evil still charges the spiritual idea with error's
own nature and methods. This malicious animal in-
stinct, of which the dragon is the type, incites mortals to
kill morally and physically even their fellow-mortals, and
worse still, to charge the innocent with the crime. This
last infirmity of sin will sink its perpetrator into a night
without a star.
Malicious barbarity
564:10
The author is convinced that the accusations against
Jesus of Nazareth and even his crucifixion were instigated
by the criminal instinct here described. The
Revelator speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God
and of the dragon as warring against innocence. Since Jesus
must have been tempted in all points, he, the immaculate,
met and conquered sin in every form. The brutal bar-
barity of his foes could emanate from no source except the
highest degree of human depravity. Jesus "opened not
his mouth." Until the majesty of Truth should be demon-
strated in divine Science, the spiritual idea was arraigned
before the tribunal of so-called mortal mind, which was
unloosed in order that the false claim of mind in matter
might uncover its own crime of defying immortal Mind.
Doom of the dragon
564:24
From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and
death, envy, hatred, and revenge, – all evil, – are typi-
fied by a serpent, or animal subtlety. Jesus
said, quoting a line from the Psalms, "They
hated me without a cause." The serpent is perpetually
close upon the heel of harmony. From the beginning
to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual
idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typi-
fies mortal mind, "more subtle than any beast of the
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